Doomed to Repeat
by Covalent Bond
Summary: "Those who do not understand the past are doomed to repeat it." Brennan's past relationships have taught her that love is fleeting and everyone leaves eventually. How does that influence her relationship with Booth? Can she let go of her past and embrace their future? Spoiler for episodes 8.1 & 8.2. NOTE: Rating change to mild M in chapter 11 only for sex, violence.
1. Cooking is a Way of Showing Love

Author's Introduction: So ... Brennan seemed really clueless, cold and distant during last week's episode. Were the writers getting her character all wrong, or did they get her right...?

This story looks at the development of Booth and Brennan's fight, supplemented with flashbacks of Brennan's history that might put her reactions into context. I think her behavior made sense, even if it wasn't 'right.' For those who are worried that I don't understand Booth's point of view, check out my story, "No Longer Needed." Understanding Booth came easily to me, figuring out Brennan takes more work. But I like the challenge. :) This story will have a limited narrative because I'm taking Brennan's experience and point of view. Whatever limits her, limits the narrative.

Everything that I write in this story has some basis in canon. Chapter titles are taken from actual lines we've heard Brennan say. The title is part of an often misquoted phrase uttered by George Santayana: "Those who can not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't watched episodes 7.13 The Past in the Present, 8.1 The Future in the Past, or 8.2 The Partners in the Divorce, this whole story is one substantial spoiler. There are smaller spoilers for dozens of episodes throughout the entire eight seasons, but most particularly for episode 8.2.

~Q~

**_Doomed to Repeat_**

**Chapter One**

_"Cooking is a Way to Show Love." _

The decision to leave had not been undertaken in haste, although she knew it probably seemed that way to any observers. Dr. Temperance Brennan had always had extensive, particularly well-connected and highly-conductive synapses, allowing her thoughts to streak through scenarios and probabilities at … the speed of electricity. Which is to say, the speed of light.

Her intricately wired brain stored vast amounts of data, memories and observations that she could recall and utilize in less time than it took to blink an eye. She thought fast, solved problems fast, made decisions fast. Brennan always had, even as a sheltered, gangly teenager who was still insulated from the world's greatest cruelties.

So the decision to leave Booth, as painful as it was practical, she made in the span of an hour. Brennan tried to foresee as many possible consequences as were visible, including the possibility that Booth would not forgive her. That terrifying prospect was ever in the fringes of her mind all the time she was gone.

Working fast and digging deep into Pelant's history, Brennan thought of nothing but clearing her name so she could be reunited with Booth. When the end-game approached, Brennan calculated the best way to bring about the reunion she so desperately longed for. Leaving the twin clues of Pelant's long-missing high school counselor—expertly unearthed—and the snowdrop flowers, Brennan had checked herself into the Snow Drop Inn under the name of Roxy St. Claire, the same name she'd used in Vegas. Then she waited, hoping he would string the clues together, hoping indeed that he would care enough to want to follow them.

In the back of her mind, she was aware that he might only come for Christine and she had steeled herself for that. His first moment of shocked recognition, followed by passionate kissing and a frantic coupling on the motel room floor, appeased that particular fear. She breathed a sigh of relief, a sob of joy, feeling his arms and body wrapped around her and daring to hope they would be fine. In her experience, everyone always leaves … but Booth always stayed, the exception to her rule. He would forgive her, of course. He was Booth, her partner in all things.

Booth, of course, was what she missed the most. Everything about him, from his warm eyes to his strong arms, his childish taste for cartoons and comics, his steadfast and loyal heart: she missed it all.

But there were other things to miss, some that she hadn't truly considered while undertaking her calculations on the pros and cons of turning fugitive. The obvious things—Angela, Hodgins & Cam and even Sweets—she had considered. The lab itself, being just a place, had not seemed terribly important to her, however. So it was strange to find herself staring at the steel top of a kitchen work table in a no-name diner somewhere, and fervently wish there was a skeleton laying on it instead of carrots and cabbages to be shredded for the House Salad.

The lab was her second home, however, not her primary residence. The place she was most surprised to find herself missing was her house, the home she and Booth built together. She longed to sleep in her own bed, feeling Booth's body radiating heat beside her. She yearned for the deep red walls of their living room, holding up the shelves with all of his antiques and her artifacts, their individual possessions lovingly demonstrating that their separate lives had merged into one beautiful tapestry.

She desperately wanted to go _home_, to that place that represented love and comfort, belonging. Security. And Booth.

For three months she'd dreamed of being back at home, _their_ home, doing ordinary household tasks. Laundry in her own, clean laundry room. Scrubbing out her own, clean porcelain bathroom fixtures instead of staring into the filthy ones provided by whatever seedy motel she and her father could find that was willing to forego ID in lieu of cash. Instead of standing over a hot industrial stove, Temperance Brennan dreamed of cooking in her own kitchen, surrounded by high-end cookware and his antique Bakelite phone and her artifacts, warm sunshine streaming in the windows, Christine babbling happily while Booth bounced her on his knee.

Once she was home, with Booth, everything would be fine. Things would return to normal and she would love Booth to try and make up for the separation. He would still love her. Everything would be fine.

Now she was home. And everything was fine.

She'd fulfilled most of those curiously domestic fantasies the first few days after her return, and all that remained was cooking. Brennan wanted to cook in her own kitchen, letting Booth know through her culinary skills that she loved him and was glad to be back home.

To that end, she woke up extra early on a weekday morning and slipped down to the kitchen while Booth was in the shower. She took down her Kachina apron that she'd bought at the Santa Fe airport after finishing a dig in New Mexico, pleased to feel the soft fabric covering her clothing when she tied it in back.

Brennan hummed while she sliced strawberries and blueberries into a bowl. Still humming, she moved with practiced efficiency as she whipped up the pancake batter, adding an egg for fluffiness and pinches of cinnamon and nutmeg, and a dash of freshly ground black pepper for just the right zing. After she poured out the first batch onto the griddle, she poured orange juice for Booth and herself. Once she had flipped the first batch, Brennan quickly set the coffee to brewing, then slid the first round of pancakes onto the heated hot plate standing by. Just as she finished pouring out the second batch, she sensed Booth coming into the room and waited to hear his pleased surprise.

When he entered the kitchen he was still buttoning his shirt cuffs, but the scent and activity he encountered did not bring the hoped-for look of pleasure to his face. Instead, he looked merely confused. "What's going on?"

Standing at the stove with a spatula, Brennan glanced over her shoulder, trying to read his nearly blank expression. "Oh, I learned to make pancakes as a fry cook outside of Newburn, North Carolina."

He came closer, repeating skeptically, "Fry cook."

His behavior was not what she had been anticipating, but Brennan knew she was usually unable to really anticipate people's responses. She left that to Booth most of the time. Booth himself, however, she usually had an easier time reading. Over the last eight years, Brennan had studied him intensely and had amassed an extensive range of potential Boothy expressions and reactions, so it was puzzling that today he was opaque. Needing a moment to reflect, Brennan set the spatula down, moving towards the cupboards to retrieve their breakfast dishes.

She tried to fill in the gaps of his knowledge, explaining her stint as a fry cook. "Well, we didn't have any money while we were evading arrest. So, I had to do whatever I could to get by." She returned to him with the dishes. "My dad wanted to steal, but…."

Booth's reaction was to remove the dishes from her hands and pick up the spatula. He spoke in a short, clipped, dismissive tone, all but pushing her out of the kitchen with words alone. "Well, you don't have to be a fry cook anymore. _I_ cooked us breakfast before. Why don't you go sit and read one of those dead body books that you like."

Smiling, trying to reassure him that she was enjoying cooking them breakfast, Brennan took the spatula back out of his hands. "No, Booth, I'm fine. You sit. I like to cook breakfast, you just … never let me."

Years ago, a promising young chef named Carly had told Brennan that cooking was a way to show love. After being away so long and missing so many aspects of the life they'd begun together, she _wanted_ to cook for him. She wanted that small act of provision to serve as a tangible sign of what she felt for him, and about them.

Still standing at the stove, Booth turned defensive. "Well, it wasn't like I tied you up. I was just … trying to be nice."

"I know. I'm just…." She drew in a deep breath, looking suddenly confused because this morning wasn't turning out to be what she'd envisioned. She thought he was worried that she didn't enjoy cooking, or that she was uncomfortable with it. Trying to reassure him, she explained, "I'm used to doing this."

Brennan flicked her eyes back to Booth, just wanting him to let her do this for him. "So, _I'm_ nice now. Okay?"

"You. Okay." He hesitated briefly, as if regrouping. Once he'd finally decided to acquiesce to her, Booth turned decidedly flirtatious. "You're _very_ nice…." He leaned in to kiss her.

If he kissed her, they would end up late. That was the truth—Booth's mouth on her always turned her brains to mush, caused time to disappear, and any notions of self-discipline became just the vestiges of someone else's forgotten ideal. Once his lips connected with hers, breakfast would be a lost cause. Abruptly, trying to get the pancakes out of harm's way, Brennan drew back and turned away with the pan. "Oh, you know what? I don't want them to burn."

A cold chill swept around her the moment she stepped away.

Booth sighed audibly.

Pausing at the counter, she bit her lip. She was already realizing she had made a misstep. "I … I didn't mean to turn away like that."

He picked up one of the jet black coffee cups and looked at it just as carefully as she typically examined evidence. "No, no. That's fine."

She tilted her head, listening carefully. He'd said it was fine, but his tone suggested otherwise. Growing very uncertain, Brennan took the coffee pot and offered to pour.

"Coffee," he agreed without enthusiasm.

_Something isn't right,_ her weak people skills warned her. _Fix it._ While pouring the coffee Brennan tried to lean in and steal a kiss, hoping to make amends, but they just butted heads awkwardly. Both winced. She pulled back, embarrassed and at a complete loss.

Glancing down at the pancakes, Booth complimented her half-heartedly. "These look, uh … good."

"I know," she answered with a bit more confidence. Something about Booth had her feeling tentative, but at least she knew she could cook. He would like these. Brennan quickly scooped a pancake onto his plate and hoped the cliché about food being the way to a man's heart would prove correct in this case. It had worked with the macaroni and cheese. Recalling how much he'd enjoyed that meal when she cooked it, Brennan waited in hope for her food to comfort him again.

And true enough, his mood did improve slightly. Booth perched on the edge of the counter and teased her a little. "Not like my French Toast…."

Possibly a manifestation of her unease, the words were blurted out without thought, something she rarely did. "Oh, I make French Toast now."

Almost immediately, she wished she could call them back because Booth's body had tensed.

A long, awkward silence ensued. Booth gazed down at his plate. Brennan stood rigid, sensing they were out of balance, yet she was very unclear on what had happened. All of the warmth had left her kitchen, leaving her with shivers and a tight sensation in her chest.

She watched her partner's face almost desperately, searching for a signal to guide her.

Once again, her sense of timing and appropriate social interaction was askew. She stumbled over her spoken words far more often than she liked, but usually with Booth she never needed to be on guard. He loved her. He always seemed to know what she meant, or at least he tried to. The man standing in front of her seemed almost like a stranger at that moment.

He looked blank, yet his face was set in harsher lines than she was used to seeing. A face flashed in her mind's eye, harsh, eyes afire. Brennan felt an ancient panic nipping at the edges of her composure but she pushed it away determinedly. This was Booth, not….

They were saved by his ringing phone. "Booth. … Right. … Great. On our way." He hung up and turned back to her. The storm clouds that had unnerved her seemed to have dissipated during the phone call. "Well, business as usual."

Brennan summoned a weak smile, relieved to have an escape from the tension. Relieved that they were okay. "I'll get Christine ready for daycare."

She didn't know he wasn't looking at her when she left the room. If she had, she might have realized that they weren't okay.

~Q~

Author's Note: Hopefully Brennan's different point of view is starting to make sense. What do you readers think? Did this feel genuinely like Brennan? What did I miss? Are there any other interpretations to this scene? Are there any questions you want answered in a future chapter? Let me know! :)

We're going to start exploring Brennan's past in the next chapter. I plan to update every Sunday.


	2. All Relationships are Temporary

Author's Note:

First, I would like to thank a new friend I've made here in the Bones community. :) DorothyOz, a fellow writer, is the source of inspiration that started me writing this. Even better, she's been a wonderful sounding board behind the keyboard who has challenged me to explain certain things. Reading her heart-crushing story got me to thinking and plotting this piece as a sort of counterpoint. Her story is "The Partners in the Divorce." It's very well-written alternative view of what might happen if Booth and Brennan are unable to work their problems out.

Thank you to those who shared their thoughts with me in their review. I agree that Brennan seemed stiff and awkward and I'm glad you sensed that in the story. Your feedback does help me see what needs work or where I haven't been clear in my writing. Every comment helps!

The one quality that I think sets Brennan apart from most other people is her being so very Literal. She takes words at face value, often missing tone, nuance, sarcasm and metaphor. It's easy for us to say she's literal, but a lot harder to see the consequences of being literal. In many ways, Brennan thinks like a child does. Furthermore, Brennan believes that Booth is absolutely honest with her. She trusts him. Usually when she upsets him, he explains it to her and they resolve their misunderstandings.

Why is that a problem, you ask? Well, it's wonderful, except when Booth deflects or holds back information. Brennan watches for words and actions to alert her to what is going on. She's not good at reading faces. She's often terrible at reasoning out motivation in others, which is why she depends on words and actions so much. And she takes what Booth tells her as the truth. If he says everything is fine … she believes him. The problem is starting up because Booth is saying they're fine with words, but his actions seem to indicate otherwise.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bones, sadly.

I do, however, have a time machine. It's sitting in my conservatory right now, waiting for us to jump in and see what events from Brennan's past might be influencing her today.

~Q~

**Chapter Two**

_"All Relationships are Temporary."_

"I really like you, Tempe." Andy Pfluger leaned in, smiling sweetly. "What do you want for your Secret Santa gift?"

Blushing, she tipped her head against her locker. Tempe couldn't believe Andy was talking to her, that he liked her! And he was her Secret Santa? How could she have gotten so lucky?

She shook her head, trying to clear her jumbled thoughts. "Um, I really like Smurfette."

"Smurfette? The pretty one?" Andy's breath smelled slightly minty. His teasing grin made her heart flutter.

"You're my Secret Santa?" she asked, hardly able to believe the most popular boy in school had drawn her name.

"Yep. I got lucky. Thanks for making this easy for me, Tempe." He pushed off the lockers and strode away confidently, never looking back.

When she got to school on Friday, there was a tittering crowd of students standing around her locker. "Hey, Morticia! Someone left you something!"

The students erupted in laughter as Tempe cautiously approached the small object taped to her locker door. A Brainy Smurf…? Cheeks burning, she reached for it.

Andy's grin looked ghoulish. "Sorry, Temp. I just don't think Smurfette is your type."

Stung, humiliated, Tempe dashed for the bathrooms. The mocking jeers chased her all the way there.

The only comfort she could take was that it was Dec 20th, the last day of school. She was glad Christmas vacation started tomorrow. She wouldn't have to face her peers for two weeks. When Tempe went home that afternoon she cried in her mother's arms.

~Q~

"Good bye!" The window was rolled down, letting the frigid Chicago air blast into their car.

Tempe and Russ Brennan stood in the doorway, waving back as their parents beamed at them from the retreating car. It was Sunday, just a couple of days before Christmas, and Mom had complained she'd been so busy getting ready for the start of tax season right after Christmas that she had fallen behind in her Christmas preparations. She still had some last-minute holiday shopping to do.

Russ nudged his sister back inside the house. "Come on, Tempe. We're heating the outdoors."

"That isn't possible," she mumbled. She had been even quieter than usual since Friday afternoon, still brooding over the 'Brainy Smurf Incident' as Russ had taken to calling it.

He shook his head fondly. "Figure of speech."

"A colloquialism," she decided, filing the phrase away.

Russ laughed at his sister's typically odd ways and left her curled into the sofa with her biology and pre-calculus books spread open. He retreated to the garage where his prized sports car was waiting. He loved tinkering with the engine, finding ways to fine-tune its performance the same way Tempe loved reading any text-book she could find.

The hours slipped silently by. When it grew dark and cold started seeping through the picture window behind her, Tempe looked up with a shiver. She realized how late it was, and that she was getting hungry. Russ had finished tinkering in the garage and was rummaging in the kitchen. Silence floated strangely throughout the entire house.

"Where are Mom and Dad?" she asked him.

"I don't know," Russ shrugged.

She looked at the clock over the kitchen sink. "It's eight-thirty."

Russ glanced up. "Yeah…."

"What time does the mall close?"

His expression changed. Tempe watched her brother's cheeks bulge slightly as he tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes. He strode over to the window and looked outside to see if it had begun snowing. It hadn't. Harsh light from the orange streetlights blotted out the stars, making the sky velvety black with only the swollen yellow moon hanging to the east.

He turned back to his sister, a puzzled frown puckering his brows. It was Sunday. "The Mall closed at seven."

Tempe looked over at the telephone and answering machine, looking for a blinking light that might alert her to a missed phone call. Had she gotten so lost in her studies of cellular mitosis and meiosis that she hadn't heard it ring? The answering machine was dark, indicating there weren't any messages waiting.

"Maybe they stopped for a bite to eat," Russ guessed.

"Dad wouldn't leave us behind," Tempe argued.

He rubbed his chin, growing worried and trying not to show it. "Their car is fine. It's running fine. They'll get home soon."

Two hours later, Tempe stood in the driveway, shivering in a lightweight sweater. Russ joined her a moment later. "I called the police. They said they'll send someone by to take a report."

Tempe kept her eyes trained on the bright full moon floating overhead, studying it carefully.

Russ followed her gaze, noticing the moon did seem remarkably bright tonight. "The moon looks big," he commented.

"It's at perigee," she agreed.

"Perry what?"

She pulled herself back to earth. "Perigee. It means the moon is at its closest point to the earth this year."

Russ laughed softly. "How do you know all this stuff, Tempe?"

"I remember everything," she replied quite seriously.

~Q~

Three police officers and a woman who had introduced herself as a case worker stood in the living room. Tempe was once again curled into the corner of the sofa, her heavy Biology book wrapped in her arms as if she could draw some comfort from it. Looking from one stranger's face to the next, she felt thoroughly out of her depth.

The taller officer was speaking to Russ, explaining the reason they'd arrived so late this evening. "We found your parents' car at a rest stop."

"Where?" Russ interjected, confused.

The other officer was Hadley, a slightly overweight man with sympathetic eyes. The kinder of the two, he clarified. "A rest stop, about a thousand miles from here."

Tempe looked up in bewilderment.

Russ shook his head. "That doesn't make sense."

"Russ?"

Her frightened voice made him wince. "It's okay, Tempe. Marco."

"Polo." She watched him carefully, taking her cue from Russ's tension. Never very alert to body language, Russ and her parents were the exceptions. She'd lived with them all of her life and had managed to assemble a functioning catalogue of expressions and movements that clued her in to mood, and guided her to select the more appropriate social responses. Right now, Russ was uneasy and confused.

Consequently, Tempe was feeling far worse.

It had been over 48 hours now. It was Christmas Eve and their parents still hadn't come home.

The chaos swirling around her was relieved only by Russ's steady presence. She knew he was worried, but he maintained a façade of calm and hope that she clung to with the sure knowledge that Russ knew what to do. Russ could handle this. Russ would make sure nothing else bad happened.

She needed that assurance because everything else in the world had become frighteningly unstable. Even the walls of her house looked wobbly and liable to fall. Tempe burrowed herself deeper into the sofa, wishing she would wake up.

The blue and red flashes of police lights had been delayed by an enforced 24 hour waiting period which had ended yesterday. Once Christine and Matthew Brennan had truly been absent without word for an entire day, their apprehensive children's concerns could be answered. The missing person's investigation began on Dec 23rd, and a day later the news was grim.

"We found blood in the front seat," Officer Hadley continued gently. "Quick typing shows the blood type is O, which matches your mother's blood type. I'm sorry."

Tempe looked at the officer doubtfully. "O is the most common blood type, shared by approximately 35% of the population. Why are you sorry?"

Hadley blinked at her quizzically.

The social worker stepped in smoothly. "He's sorry because it doesn't rule your mother out as a victim."

"At the moment, we believe your parents were the victim of a carjacking," Hadley explained.

"In light of this development, we need to formulate a plan for Temperance's continued care," Ms. Schwartz declared.

"What plan? She's staying with me." Russ set his jaw, his determination clear. "I'm nineteen."

"Yes, but being a caregiver requires certain skills. You're going to need some help."

"We're fine," he insisted.

"How are you going to support yourselves? You'll need an income. Temperance needs to continue her education."

"Look, I'll take care of it. Okay?"

The adults in the room looked at one another skeptically.

"I've got a job. I can handle it!"

Exchanging business cards and offering sheets of paper with social services numbers printed on them, the social worker and police officers finally departed. Silence settled once more over the house, leaving the siblings staring wordlessly at each other with no hope in sight. They were alone again, now for the third night. It was Christmas Eve.

Darkness crept in from every corner of the room, broken only by a weak pool of light from Mom's favorite lamp in the corner. Russ went over to the tree and plugged it in.

"What are you doing?" Tempe asked. The overly festive tree seemed a mockery of the grief and worry they both struggled to hide from each other.

"It's too dark in here." Russ stepped back from the tree, looked from it to his sister. "You hungry?"

"No."

He sighed. Tempe had never been much of a conversationalist. Over the last three days she'd barely spoken at all. "You gotta eat, Tempe."

"Not hungry."

Lost in his own home, Russ turned slowly and looked at everything they had left. Worry made him gnaw his lower lip. "I don't like that case worker," he decided.

This was interesting enough to reach his distant sister. "Why not?"

Shrugging, he turned and looked at her. "She's waiting for us to fail."

Tempe's clear grey eyes sparked. "Brennans don't fail at anything." Their father had taught her that.

"Right." He smiled, reassured by her confidence in him.

But thinking of her father only served to siphon the brief animation right back out of her. "What happened to them," she wondered, sounding weaker again. The disruption of losing both parents had her spinning in a whirlwind. Nothing felt real anymore.

Kneeling down in front of her, Russ's warm hand covered hers. "We'll always have each other, right? Marco."

She whispered back, "Polo." And believed him.

~Q~

"Tempe! I'm sorry!" Russ was banging on her door, pleading with her. "Please!"

She had moved her heavy dresser in front of the door, preventing anyone from entering her darkened bedroom.

Tempe had spent the past two hours sitting on her bed, pinching herself violently. "Wake up," she muttered, pinching herself again. Her fingers twisted the delicate white skin of her forearm, just inside her antecubital notch. She had learned yesterday that antecubital meant inside of the elbow. Dark venous blood leaked out under her skin through the torn capillaries, flooding the freshly injured area with a stain that would last for days. Her fingernails sliced through the upper layer of her epidermis, drawing bright red arterial blood. "Wake up," she chanted. "Wake up."

Russ pounded again. "I didn't know putting out our Christmas presents would upset you so much. I was just trying to make you feel better."

When she'd seen the presents resting under the glittering Christmas tree, the bright flare of hope that her parents had returned caused her to rush joyfully into the living room. Looking around, shouting "Mom! Dad!" she'd skittered to a halt when the only person there was her brother, his face stricken.

The nightmare hadn't ended. She wasn't awake.

Wake up," she insisted, almost screaming it. Tears streaked down her pale cheeks, her lank hair hanging in tangles. She hadn't showered since the day they left, four days ago. Bruises and cuts lay scattered like confetti all over her arms and legs. "Wake up. Wake up!"

"Tempe, you gotta come out. Please, Tempe." A soft sob broke in his voice. "I don't know what to do. Please, just talk to me."

"Wake up." She pinched again. Running out of available real estate on her bludgeoned limbs, Tempe's furious fingers found fresh meat on her belly. "Wake up…."

~Q~

Shouted voices carried to her bedroom upstairs.

"I called you for help, but not for this. You can't do this."

"Look, you're only 19 and your sister has special needs."

"Special needs? She's a genius, not Special Ed!" Russ yelled.

"Yes, of course. We know that," Ms Schwartz soothed. "But with her high intelligence and demonstrated social immaturity, this is not going well. It's more than you can handle."

"I just need help getting her out of her room, that's all."

"And then what, Russ…?"

Tempe lay on her bed, staring blankly at the wall. Fire burned along almost every nerve of her arms and legs, the combined sting of dozens of tiny slices plus the throbbing of bruising everywhere her fingers could reach. The pain was real, the only real thing. "Wake up," she pleaded, wondering why this nightmare wouldn't stop.

~Q~

"Tempe, this is for the best," Russ insisted brokenly.

Ms. Schwartz stood in the background, holding out a box filled with black plastic Hefty bags. "Gather your things, Temperance."

Her piercing silver eyes found his for just one moment, piercing him to the quick with the pain of perceived betrayal. "You promised me, Russ!"

"I know, but I didn't know it was going to be this hard. You won't talk to me. You haven't come out of this room since Christmas. It's been a week."

Her jaw tightened, a Brennan family trait they'd both inherited from their stubborn father. She looked away, no longer seeing him. Her fingers blindly felt for soft flesh, twisting another bruise. Only the pain kept her grounded. "Wake up," she whispered to herself.

"It's going to be okay," he tried to promise again. "Marco."

She didn't answer.

~Q~

He called every weekend. Tempe refused to go to the phone.

At first she spent three weeks in an emergency youth shelter, the shock of being orphaned, abandoned and dumped into the foster system within days of Christmas being almost more than she could tolerate. Always introverted and cautious, she moved like a ghost from room to room, avoiding the other kids as much as possible. Yet Tempe's bruises stood out in livid contrast against her white skin, making her the object of pity among the kids who had often sported such painful and extensive bruising themselves.

She felt she didn't belong there, but when she finally admitted that to her roommate, the older, cynical girl smirked and assured her they all felt that way at first. "You belong here, Temp. You got the bruises. You got that same lost look we all had. You're one of us."

Tempe caught sight of an old Fruit-of-the-Loom men's undershirt the girl had stuffed in a backpack on her bed. There was writing on it in streaks of black sharpie. "Why did you write on your shirt?" she mumbled absently.

"This?" Jennifer pulled the shirt free and stretched it flat on the bed. "This is my list."

Her brow furrowed, Tempe looked over what looked appeared to be a list of surnames running in two columns over the front of the shirt. She turned her confused gaze back to Jennifer.

"Families that don't want me." The older girl patted her gracelessly on the shoulder. "A shy little weirdo like you? You'll have your own list in no time."

~Q~

The first 'placement' was with John and Andrea Yeats. Tempe was guarded and cautious for the first several months, always thinking in the back of her mind that her parents were going to come back for her. She threw herself into her new school and studying while she waited for the long nightmare to end. Taking her comfort from science and mathematics like never before, Tempe's intellect blossomed.

Russ still called every weekend; Tempe still refused to speak with him. Each time, Andrea reluctantly told him Tempe wasn't available and reported that Russ had said, "Marco" to her.

Months passed, the seasons shifting from winter to spring, then finally the warmth of summer reached her. With the renewal of life came a slow rebirth of promise. Her nightmare loss wasn't going away, but Tempe eventually began to see that things weren't so bad after all. She began to open up again, reaching out to make a few friends and establish tentative connections with the people around her.

The Yeats were kind, offering to help her with her homework or to enroll her in extracurricular academic activities that she was interested in. She had her own room that was clean and bright, with a neat desk and even a typewriter for school essays that had to be typed.

As the months passed, she couldn't help but relax into a new routine. Tempe reluctantly found herself liking Andrea Yeats, who was friendly—just the right amount—and yet gave Tempe space when she needed it. John helped her finish her Calculus homework every night. She developed a friendship with a girl named Ashley who was in several of her classes. The bonds she formed with the Yeats made her feel secure again.

"We really love you, Tempe," Andrea assured her. "This December we're considering asking the court to allow us to adopt you, since your parents are believed to be … deceased. Would you like that?"

Tempe lowered her gaze onto the Anatomy & Physiology textbook she'd checked out from the library. It was July, summer, and she had slowly adjusted to the idea that her parents were gone and not coming back. She had adapted to her new environment and liked this home and this family. Thinking back over the last few months, she was relieved that Jennifer's prediction had not come true. After the group home, she'd come here and this home was wonderful. The Yeats were so kind to her.

They loved her.

Pressing her lips together, Tempe finally nodded briefly. "Yes," she agreed softly. "I'd like that."

"Oh, good! I'm so glad." Andrea hugged her warmly. "You're part of our family, you know. Always. You'll stay with us forever, as long as you need."

"Really?" she asked wistfully. She wanted to believe it.

"Really. I promise."

~Q~

One late August afternoon, Andrea called Tempe to the kitchen and over a shared glass of lemonade, she told Tempe the bad news.

"I'm sorry, Tempe. John lost his job and we can't afford the mortgage. The interest rate is so high. We've decided to move in with his family to conserve our finances. We just can't take you with us. John's family lives in Ohio, so the state of Illinois won't let you go."

Tempe stared at Andrea in disbelief. "But you said you were always going to be my family! You promised I could stay with you."

"And we meant it, but circumstances change. You understand that, right?"

"No! I don't understand. You … You said you loved me. You said you would adopt me."

"We do love you, but adoption takes time, sweetheart. Time we don't have."

"You promised," Tempe repeated desperately. Russ had promised, too, she recalled with a sinking feeling.

"Even if we had adopted you, John's parents don't have enough room…." Andrea trailed off, realizing too late how bad that sounded.

Tempe's eyes dimmed, her expression shifting to vacant as she processed the implication. Not theirs. Not wanted. Jennifer had been right after all.

Yes, she understood. Seeing patterns and connections had never been a problem for her. She was seeing a pattern develop here: Promises meant nothing. Russ had promised he would take care of her. Ms. Schwartz had promised her a permanent home. The Yeats had promised to adopt her. Love meant nothing. Her parents had loved her, but they disappeared. Russ had loved her, too, but he left. And the Yeats, though they loved her, would not keep her.

She got up slowly, walked slowly to the room that wasn't really hers. Reaching into the back of her closet, Tempe found her old gym shoes from that other life, the life that was Real. She reached into her backpack and pulled out a black ballpoint pen. Very carefully, she printed Y-E-A-T-S on the bottom of her shoe, right underneath the first name she had already recorded there: R-U-S-S.

~Q~

Her second stay in the group home was considerably harder than the first, mostly because she now knew she wasn't dreaming. Twice she had lived through the shattering of an idyllic fantasy life, a life that wasn't meant to be hers. Fully disillusioned, she now had cynicism in common with the other residents. She heard the kids talking about their failed placements and this time had her own stories to contribute.

This time, Tempe didn't feel like quite such an outsider. She hovered on the fringes, never fully part of their groups but never very far away. They talked to each other over meals and in the common room, exchanging horror stories and survival tips, and she listened closely. Tempe learned a great deal, information that served her well in the coming trials.

"Most placements last about six months."

"They'll tell you they care, but just you wait. As soon as it gets hard, you'll end up back here."

Tempe lifted her head, shocked to hear another girl relate such an insight.

"Never let them see you cry."

"Telling the case workers your family is hitting you doesn't help. Try teachers instead."

"Forget telling anyone," another kid contradicted. "They don't believe you, anyway, because you're a foster kid. A liar. That's all they see. It's not worth the trouble."

~Q~

"This family comes highly recommended. I'm sure you'll be happy here." Ms. Schwartz took Tempe to a small house in the suburbs. Her parents had disappeared nine months ago.

She was nearly 16 now, tall and only just now growing into her body. Her rapid growth over the last few months had stretched and loosened her ligaments, causing an instability in her joints that translated as clumsy. Tempe frequently tripped and dropped things.

Where the Yeats had at least been kind—albeit duplicitous—this family never bothered with pretense. The rules were strict and impossible to keep. Slaps and pushes, withheld food, chores too numerous and complicated to complete which only led to further punishment. Tempe was always bruised and scared.

"Didn't I warn you to wash the windows before I got home?" he blasted, his hot breath brushing against her cheeks like a fetid paint brush.

"I did!" She looked at the window, noticing the angle of the setting sun had illuminated grayish white streaks in circular sweeps all across the large expanse of glass.

He grabbed her by her hair, dragging her to the window. "Then what the hell do you call this?"

"I … I don't know."

"You used paper towels, didn't you? I told you to use newspaper!" Shaking her roughly, suddenly he shoved Tempe's head into the window, forcing her hair up into her hand. "Clean it properly!"

She shuddered, trying to still her tears. With a halting step backwards, she started to turn for the garage to retrieve that morning's newspaper, but he clutched one powerful hand over her shoulder painfully and slammed her back into the window.

"Use your hair, you lazy snot! It's not good for anything else anyway, the way you keep it so ratty."

There was no shampoo, so Tempe hadn't been able to properly wash herself in two weeks.

"My hair?" she stammered, confused by the logistics she couldn't quite envision. Wouldn't oily hair just make it worse? When she tried to point that out to him, he exploded.

"You think you're smarter than me, huh? You with your big brain!" His eyes flared, burning into her with a hatred that made her quake in terror. She'd never seen such a look of raw malevolence directed at her before, a loathing so palpable she could feel it clawing along her skin. His fist smashed into her ribs, then another rainfall of blows to her arms, her legs, and anywhere else he could pummel her. Tempe threw her arms up over her head and endured.

_Telling the case workers your family is hitting you doesn't help. Try teachers instead._

When she told her chemistry teacher about the beatings and showed the bruises, the fact that Tempe had once indulged in self-harm came back to haunt her. The investigation was brief and ended in a ruling of 'unfounded.' _They don't believe you, anyway, because you're a foster kid. A liar. That's all they see._

They kept the water heater at 145 F (62.8 Celsius, she mentally calculated) and expected her to wash dishes in the hottest water every night.

The soap made gripping the slippery porcelain even more challenging. The intense heat roared through her skin and entered her muscles, making them clench in protest. The dish slipped, crashing against the Formica countertop.

Tempe cringed. "I'm sorry!"

"You bitch! I warned you what would happen!" His eyes burned into her, flaming with malice and pleasure that she'd given him the excuse at last to follow through.

Backing away, she gasped, terrified. "The water was too hot. The soap…."

It didn't matter. They had warned her, after all. As she screamed and struggled to free herself, Tempe was slapped and dragged into the long driveway outside. Despite her resistance, she was easily pushed into the car trunk, and left there to wilt in the hot, black, stench for more than two days.

When she was finally released, dizzy from dehydration and heat exhaustion, filthy from laying in her own urine and vomit for so long, Tempe wobbled away from the hands reaching out to steady her. Ms. Schwartz and two new police officers were standing there, regarding her with a mixture of horror and pity. "I'm so sorry, Temperance. God, this shouldn't have happened!"

_Never let them see you cry._

The day she was released from the hospital, Ms. Schwartz brought her back to the house so she could gather her things up into another plastic trash bag. Tempe paused for a few moments to write another name on the bottom of her gym shoe. E-R-I-C-K-S-O-N.

~Q~

"The next family will be better, I promise. We'll find you a permanent home."

Tempe didn't believe her. She had lived with this family for several months, but it had gotten rough over the winter when she refused to participate in Christmas activities.

_Most placements only last six months._

The fourth name on her shoe was S-T-E-W-A-R-T.

~Q~

Russ called once a month. She still wouldn't go to the telephone.

~Q~

Tempe stared out the car window at the house as Ms. Schwartz pulled away from the curb. Her fifth placement had just come to an end. Only three months. She was only sixteen years old and didn't bother trying to connect with anyone because by now she knew it wouldn't last anyway.

P-R-I-C-E.

~Q~

By the time Tempe aged out of foster care, she had eight names on her shoe. Eight failed relationships in just three years.

~Q~

Dr. Michael Stires smiled sadly. "I care about you, Tempe. I've really enjoyed our time together. "

"Then why are you taking that job in St. Paul?" She watched her former professor and thesis advisor, later her lover, and lately the man she lived with, as he unfolded another moving box. Moving around his office, he packed up his books and tools efficiently. He was brisk, professional, his demeanor standing in contrast to the sentimental words he'd just spoken to her.

"It's a good career move for me. It's time to move on." Such a convenient and rational arrangement as they had was predicated on both parties being free to leave as soon as a better opportunity came along.

Temperance pinched her lips together, torn between revealing her true feelings or keeping them hidden. Finally, daring to trust him a little, she opened her heart to this older man she had developed such strong feelings for. She suspected she might even have begun to love him though she really had no way to be certain. "I hoped we could stay together."

"Are you going to follow me to Minnesota," he countered, knowing she would not.

Temperance frowned, knowing her feelings were irrational but unable to stop feeling them. "We're living together," she reminded him unnecessarily. Didn't that imply more than a casual arrangement?

"We always said this was a temporary arrangement, remember?"

Didn't she remember that love was temporary? Temperance's heart pounded fitfully as her mind whipped through the hormonal responses of sexual attraction and pair bonding. The hormonal surges typically lasted about four years, long enough to conceive a child, carry a pregnancy and wean the child. She had been with Michael only two years. They should still have two years left.

Love was only a trick of the mind, an evolutionary tool designed to propagate the human species. She knew that. He had taught her that, and now he was still explaining all the ways that love wasn't a strong enough glue to keep people together.

"Besides, you've got that offer from the Jeffersonian in DC…."

She nodded, shutting her stinging eyes and arranging her features into a mask of calm acceptance. _Never let them see you cry._

~Q~

"All relationships are temporary," Brennan told him with the assurance conceived from her tragic experience.

"That's not true, Bones. There is someone for everyone, someone you're meant to spend the rest of your life with."

Looking into her partner's sympathetic brown eyes, she desperately wanted to believe him. In moments of private reflection, she could admit to herself that she secretly wished Booth might turn out to be that someone. But all good things come to an end, and all relationships are temporary. Every time she had forgotten that in the past, it had led inexorably to heartache.

~Q~

**Author's Note:**

Now that we've traveled back in time, we'll be better able to see how various experiences from Brennan's past informs her present. Even rational empiricists have feelings and fears that can crop up unexpectedly... Chapter three is finished and will be posted next weekend.

~Q~

A brief little tangent into the hidden joys of research rabbit trails...

In my quest to be accurate in everything, I often find myself stumbling upon the most amazing things. For example, I went back and calculated when certain events might have happened at the time Brennan's parents disappeared in Dec 1991, and being the perfectionist that I am, I wanted to make sure I got even the smallest scientific details correct: what phase was the moon that night?

It was a full moon. Not only that, the moon was at perigee. The full moon on 21-22 December 1991 was a 'super moon,' which means the moon was especially close to the earth and would have seemed much brighter and larger than normal. But that is not the part that just blew me away and brought a huge grin to my coincidence-loving heart. Both urban myth and astrologers consider "Super moons" to have a particularly strong influence on human behavior, including an increase in crimes, assaults and other strange events. (It is not at all scientific, but seeing this folklore link to 'super full' moons and bad times for Brennan was very cool, and even a bit poetic.)

But that's _still_ not the coincidence I uncovered that is simply stupendous. There is one final coincidence regarding Brennan's life and super moons. Can you guess…?

?

?

Our most recent 'super moon' was May 2012, the month Brennan's life fell apart all over again. (5 May 2012, to be exact.) It's not a precise match-up, but it's close enough to Pelant's shenanigans bring on more than a few shivers. ….Spooky…. :D

~Q~


	3. I Don't Know What to Do

Author's Note: Wasn't that a nice little journey through Brennan's history? We're not fully done with those.

Hey, speaking of strolling down memory lane, have you ever really looked forward to something? You waited for it, longed for it, maybe worked really hard to get it. You had really high expectations about how great it was going to be. Right? And then when you got it, it turned out nothing like what you expected. Not as great, not as much as you'd hoped. All you felt was disappointed and confused.

Has that ever happened to you? Just wondering... :D

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own Bones. We all know that.

Author's Disclaimer: Because I'm writing almost 100% from Brennan's point of view, this is going to feel one-sided. Brennan has never been a mind reader and she often operates from a different mindset than the majority. Brennan's unique perspective really comes into play when she's at a crime scene-it's what makes her a fantastic observer and the reason Booth worked so hard at first to get her to work with him. But, that narrow focus has some drawbacks as well.

~Q~

**Chapter Three**

_"When I Look at Him…. I Don't Know What Else I Can Do."_

Her failed effort to cook breakfast for Booth still simmered in the back of her mind. What had gone wrong there? She didn't understand his reaction or the feeling of disquiet that clung to her as she walked upstairs.

Slipping into Christine's nursery, Brennan paused a moment to regroup. She took in the warm yellow walls, familiar and yet strangely hazy in her mind, as if she had last seen this room years ago. Having been home a week already, she was finding everything to be slightly out of focus, as if she were caught in a moment just a few seconds behind everything else. Out of sync. Like always.

Cooing to her sleeping daughter, Brennan lightly stroked her hand over the baby's soft hair. "Wake up, Christine," she crooned. "Time to go to daycare."

Christine was approaching eight months old and in that time Brennan had discovered just how deeply ingrained a mother's instinct could run. At times she felt that her baby was an extension of her own body. When Christine laughed, Brennan felt the same joy. When Christine cried, Brennan felt like crying, too. It was empathy, she'd read. It allowed her to anticipate her child's needs and protect her. There was a perfectly rational, socio-biological explanation and yet, nothing she read could have prepared her for the experience of being a mother, nor for how profoundly it had impacted her.

Before Christine was born, Brennan had lost many nights to the deep-seated worry that she couldn't love her baby enough. That she would be a bad mother. Booth's reassurances had been sweetly intended, but Brennan knew well the only reliable proof was going to be her actual performance as a parent. The proof is in the pudding, her own mother would have said; or, in this case, in how Christine eventually turned out. She didn't know yet how well she was doing, but it was starting to feel natural.

She hadn't known what to do at first, so it was with relief that she discovered evolution has provided a remedy for the new parents' lack of experience: babies prove to be startlingly effective teachers so long as someone is interested enough to learn. Christine cried and Brennan tried, and after several trial-and-error efforts she'd usually landed on the source of her baby's discomfort. Then Christine smiled or slept, and Brennan sagged with exhausted satisfaction.

Before long, just as she had with every other person she truly cared about, Brennan had assembled a collection of certain cries and behavioral cues that helped her communicate with her baby. Fretful cries meant hunger. A short series of little huffing cries followed by silence and then a wail meant injury. Gasping little shrieks meant fear. They managed to communicate quite well as it turned out.

At the moment, as she was tugging down Christine's pants in preparation for a diaper change, she could tell Christine's attention was focused on the door. Since returning home, Christine found a certain other parent was endlessly fascinating.

"Da da!" She chortled happily.

"Hey, she said 'Da da,'" Booth exclaimed. "She knows me!" He walked over to the crib and reached down to tickle Christine's belly. She wriggled and squealed in infantile euphoria.

"I taught her to say it to you," Brennan explained softly. "I showed her your picture every day. I wanted to make sure she knew who you were."

He stood looking down, one hand fondling the daughter he'd missed. His face was unreadable.

"I'll get her ready for daycare, Bones. Why don't you go down and eat?"

"I'm not hungry," she answered, and realized with surprise that it was true. The cloyingly sweet smell of pancakes had hit her nose earlier and her stomach was still churning in rebellion. She really didn't like such sweet foods, but had made it for Booth. Because he liked it.

Booth's jaw tensed again. "Then why did you cook?"

Was he angry? Brennan backed away a step, confused again and on the verge of tears. Why was he acting this way, why was he so distant? She shook her head, and wondered fearfully if maybe he hadn't forgiven her after all. _They tell you they care, but as soon as things get hard…._ No, this is Booth, she told herself firmly. When he got angry with her, he always explained why, and eventually they would work it out.

"I wanted to do something nice for you." And though she didn't want it to, her voice shook a little.

His hard eyes struck her like a blow, yet his words were soft. "Then let me get Christine ready. Do that for me. You need to eat."

She started to protest again, but seeing how his attention had returned to the baby and his face had softened, she sighed. Christine's soft baby noises filled the tense silence. He hadn't said anything, so everything was fine. They were fine.

"Okay," she surrendered.

Biting her lip, Brennan returned to the kitchen and noticed Booth hadn't eaten anything either. The cooling pancakes sat on his plate untouched. The bowl of fruit languished on the counter and his coffee sat gently steaming by the sink, still completely full.

She scooped two spoonfuls of the berries onto her own plate and poured herself some coffee. Two bites in, nausea roiled and she had to set the plate aside. Though there was no rational basis for it, Brennan found herself crying as she put the uneaten food away and cleaned the kitchen.

~Q~

When Booth carried Christine down stairs and reached for the diaper bag Brennan had packed, he didn't meet her eyes. "Thanks for cooking," he said quietly. "I guess I'm just not hungry."

He didn't even look into the kitchen, where all evidence of her effort was now tidied away, including the tears she had dashed from her eyes and the makeup she had repaired just a minute ago. Brennan nodded, knowing he wouldn't notice how red her eyes were because he wasn't looking at her. "Maybe you can make us French Toast tomorrow," she suggested hopefully.

"Yeah." Booth shifted Christine and started towards the car. "I'll drop her off at daycare."

"I can do it," Brennan offered.

"You have to get the equipment ready," he countered. "I'll meet you at the lab and we can drive to the scene together. Like we always do."

She lifted her gaze to him and found some warmth there at last when he finally glanced her way. Clinging to the familiar, to what they did together as partners, she nodded.

And sighed.

And drove to work alone.

~Q~

Their reunion at the Jeffersonian went marginally better than their morning had. Conversation in the SUV was slower than usual, but at least the cool awkwardness had retreated. Brennan gazed out the window at the late summer tourists cloistered in front of the National Archives, the National Gallery of Art, the National Air and Space Museum, until they all faded away when Booth hooked up with I-395 and headed east.

It had been three months since she'd been east of DC, Brennan reflected. All of her time on the run was spent somewhere vaguely west, because there was so much more of the West to hide in. That time away made everything that was once so familiar blurred and indistinct. "I haven't been this way in a long time," she commented.

"I have. Three weeks ago."

She tried again, sensing he didn't want to talk but still she kept trying to connect. "We went west the first few days."

"Yeah, I figured." It was abrupt, leaving no room for further discourse.

When they arrived at the crime scene fifteen minutes later, a burning barrel half charred under a soaring span of concrete, Brennan glanced around and recalled another bridge she'd spent time underneath. Wanting to share as much of her experiences as possible, she revealed that part of her adventure to Booth.

"One night when we were on the road, I camped out under a bridge that looked very much like this."

The entire 'adventure' had been a trial of endurance, determination, fear and intrigue. Brennan and Christine had spent most of their time isolated, joined by her father only every few days, just long enough to exchange the next meeting points and any ID changes to get her through the next stint of solo travel. She had hated every moment of being away from Booth, and of keeping Christine away from her father. With every recollection that came to mind, Brennan blurted them out, sharing it all with him as much as she could so he could know what had happened. So he could feel a little like he'd been with them, too.

Mostly he had just listened in silence, his eyes unreadable. Today he was finally speaking, but every word was clipped and cold. Booth repeated tartly, "You slept under a bridge with Christine." He sounded disgusted, a bit angry, and definitely disapproving.

Brennan felt another moment of disquiet. The negative tone was strong enough that she reacted defensively. "She loved it!"

After all, a baby would be unlikely to worry about location, so long as her basic needs for food, warmth and love were met. Keeping Christine safe and happy had been her biggest priority while they were fugitives. Proving herself innocent had come a distant second.

"Probably because it wasn't a murder scene," Booth muttered sarcastically.

Brennan frowned, puzzled. They had never taken Christine to a crime scene. It almost sounded like Booth didn't want to be at this murder scene. She watched him step away from her, his back to her, and felt the distance opening up wider as his feet carried him further away.

Turning to Cam, the Forensic Pathologist, he asked, "So, what do we got here?"

Dr. Camille Saroyan's brisk reply was a welcome change of topic. "Uh, not much so far… Severely charred body. Local PD says no one witnessed anything."

Shoving Booth's odd behavior out of her mind, Brennan approached the barrel, bending to take a look at the partially-exposed skull.

"So far I found blowflies," Dr. Jack Hodgins volunteered. "No eggs or larvae, so I can't determine time of death."

Jack was aptly named, the Jack-of-All-Trades who served as the Jeffersonian Medico-Legal department's entomologist, geologist, and botanist. Given he had PhDs in all three subjects plus a bachelor's in analytical chemistry, replacing him with less than four people would have been impossible. Hodgins's steady, rational presence on today of all days was something Brennan might have been tempted to thank a deity for, except that she couldn't imagine which deity would be the most appropriate recipient of such a prayer.

Why was she even thinking of prayer and religion now? Brennan shot a slightly sour glance at her partner, figuring it was his influence, and struggled to get her mind back on task. She picked up the dropped threads of her last rational musing and finished it: Having both of her colleagues at the scene would make this retrieval go much faster. Glad to see them both, glad to have something familiar to focus upon, she took her place beside the burned out barrel and got her first look at the remains.

A human had been doused with accelerant and set on fire. Parts of the body were extensively charred, while in other places the flesh remained with a decidedly 'cooked' aspect. What she could see of the body suggested fairly high temperatures sustained for at least 20 minutes.

The head of the victim was resting at the burned-out edge of the old oil drum. Her eyes skimmed over the gaping hole in the side of the skull, noting the outward beveling that indicated a large exit wound. She knew Booth would want to know only about the 'who' at this point; the 'how' would come later. She began looking at the teeth, brow and nasal structures, checking for specific characteristics that might yield race, age or possibly socio-economic status. Yet at the back of her mind, she traced the trajectory of the beveling, knowing there might be blowout. As she turned her head, she had already begun telling Booth what she could see of the facial characteristics.

"Based on the nasal root and the brow ridge, the victim was a Caucasian ma—" Brennan broke off abruptly when she tracked the blowout's path. Booth was standing to that side with his foot propped on a pylon smeared in pinkish grey goop.

"Don't step in the brain, Booth!"

He flinched and pulled his foot up reflexively.

Seeing him carelessly compromise evidence completely derailed her thoughts for a moment. One of the things she had always appreciated about Booth as an investigator and law enforcement officer was his nearly intuitive understanding of how to treat evidence. While she had once joked about 'breaking him in,' the truth was that Brennan had never had to expend much energy on teaching Booth how to approach, conserve, collect and preserve trace evidence. He'd always had a very firm grasp on that.

It was one of the many reasons she'd insisted on working only with him.

His literal misstep now gave her pause. Worse, it made her question why he had acted so carelessly. What did such distraction on his part mean? He'd been acting strangely all day. A feeling of unreality suddenly began to churn, similar though less intense than she'd experienced before when her parents didn't come home that night. Everything felt off, slightly out of step once again. Going to a crime scene with Booth should be normal, so why didn't it feel right…?

Thoroughly repulsed, Booth moaned in dismay. "_Brain_? Awww…. What?!"

Hodgins seemed unaffected by the mounting tension between the partners. Happily, he chirped, "It's nice, huh? All of us back together again?"

"It's not nice," Booth groused. "There's brain on my shoe!"

Cam came to the rescue with a bag. Slipping it over Booth's loafer, she gently tugged the whole shoe off.

"Bag my shoe!?" He gaped at her in disbelief as if wondering if this day could possibly get any worse.

"Yeah," Cam retorted without sympathy. "You can hop." Cam looked at Booth curiously, as if also wondering what had come over him to cause such carelessness.

Still happily oblivious, Hodgins crooned. "Yeah, I've missed this."

Glancing from Booth's darkened features to Cam's busy professionalism, Brennan turned sharply when Hodgins began waxing nostalgic. The unwelcome reminder that the entire team had been disrupted because she'd been framed by Pelant left an unexpected flood of regurgitated gastric acid in her mouth. She wanted to shut everyone up and get back to professional.

She wanted to feel normal, not queasy with apprehension.

Looking back to the mostly charred remains, she tried to ground herself in what was real. There was a probable murder victim, there were bones, and she had a job to do. After a moment of intense concentration, her heart rate settled and the bitter gastric aftertaste faded from her throat. Brennan noticed something silvery and metallic glinting among the bones of the neck. Finally, something that could redirect Hodgins away from his reminiscing. Flicking her eyes up to her fellow scientist, Brennan clipped, "What is adhering to the victim's C6, Dr. Hodgins? Do you see that?"

Hodgins was immediately interested in the foreign substance. He leaned in for a closer look. "It must be some kind of melted alloy." In his enthusiasm, he forgot himself. Turning to retrieve a sharp metallic instrument, he added, "Maybe I can get something to scrape it off."

Her eyes widened in disbelief. Hodgins, too? What had happened to everyone? Brennan snapped. "No. No, we have to find a way to remove it without destroying bone evidence."

She regarded Hodgins with confusion. Surely he hadn't forgotten that scraping would leave marks in the bone? How many years had they worked together, and he was making a mistake she would chastise an intern for. Brennan shook her head, distressed at this further sign that things were off with the dynamics of their entire team, not just with Booth. Had three months really been so long? It seemed as if none of them fully remembered how to do their jobs properly.

Well, except for Cam, she amended gratefully. For the moment, Cam was still on track. Brennan sighed and wished the persistent gastric reflux she was experiencing would dissipate.

Glancing around, Booth took in the outdoor environment, the isolated location and the colony of shelters made from corrugated sheet metal and cardboard boxes nearby. "The victim was probably homeless," he speculated.

Brennan stared again at Booth, thoroughly consternated. First stepping in the brain, now this baseless conjecture. Just because homeless people frequented the area didn't mean their victim had been homeless. What it meant was that isolated areas made great places to get rid of bodies … and the kind of bodies that needed getting rid of typically didn't belong to the homeless. Burning and burying took extra effort and indicated the desire to conceal identity. The homeless were already anonymous, so they were generally left in garbage dumpsters or out in the open. Booth himself had taught her that.

Confirming Brennan's thoughts, Cam refuted his speculation with a quick shake of her head. Looking at the victim's hand that poked through a hole in the barrel and consequently had mostly escaped burning, she observed the clean, buffed nails and smirked. "I don't know of many homeless guys that get manicures."

"Okay," he amended. "That definitely changes things, okay? This guy was found in an oil—"

Abruptly, Brennan interrupted him, reminding him of what looked painfully obvious, even to her. Especially now, when she'd spent time in the nether-world populated by the forgotten and forlorn. "This is clearly a body dump. This location is anonymous, isolated, witnesses would be deemed unreliable. This site was chosen with care."

It was exactly the reason she'd chosen to spend a night under a bridge. She'd had an uncomfortably close encounter with a sheriff in rural Kentucky and slipping in amongst the homeless population of Louisville for a couple of nights had helped her fade back into the background. No one with a home to go to went looking for anything under bridges.

She didn't notice his chagrin at her bold foray into his territory, but Hodgins and Cam both did. They caught each other's eyes with concern, both of them sensing things were about to get rough.

After a moment of shocked silence, Booth hid his irritation with exaggerated politeness and just a hint of sarcasm. "Bones, explanations like that are sort of _my thing_…? Okay? So why don't you just stick to the _toasty guy_ there."

In the past, Booth had always seemed pleased or impressed when Brennan could interpret motive from evidence. She had given him the motive on their very first case together, when she noted Judge Hasty frequently touching his nose and concluded he had a deviated septum—evidence of chronic substance abuse via 'snorting.' She had intuitively known the motive of Chelsea Cole's mother had been a mercy killing, because the woman who thought she was dying had used her own medications to spare Chelsea a life in foster care. Booth's reaction to that insight had been amazement and warmth. This time, his eyes were cold and his unusually erect posture told her she had trespassed somehow.

Disoriented and now defensive, she latched onto what seemed like a valid point. Her explanation for her evident trespass sounded perfectly logical to her own ears. "I was a fugitive, so I actually have more real life experience."

"I've been a special agent for _years,_" he reminded her icily.

That hadn't stopped him from making mistakes today, she thought sourly. He was out of practice. Thinking of his literal misstep from just moments ago, Brennan's eyes flashed, her tone taking on more than a hint of mockery. "Who hasn't been in the field for months."

He sucked in a furious breath.

She knew this wasn't right. Nothing was right. She was out of step again. The sense of disorientation flared again, making the world sound distant, like cotton stuffed into her ears. Brennan felt as if she were choking as this wildly atypical argument with Booth sent even more gastric mayhem up her esophagus. She blinked, trying to hold on to some semblance of reason. "I'm just being thorough, Booth. You want me to be thorough, don't you?"

Now extremely annoyed and overtly sarcastic, he spoke through clenched teeth. "Yes, I want you to be _thorough_. Completely thorough. Are you finished here? Would you like me to transfer this back to the Jeffersonian for you?"

Cam and Hodgins traded another matched set of concerned glances. Booth and Brennan bickered and sparred often, but this was harsher and more mean-spirited than they'd ever heard before.

_Yes! Work,_ she thought with relief. _Work. Focus on the job, the facts. Science has a method, always the same, always reliable. _Brennan gathered herself to answer. "Actually, yes. Yes, if the techs could—"

Now Booth was the one who interrupted her. It was probably meant as a taste of her own medicine, but then he couldn't have known how bad this argument tasted already. She swallowed the rest of her intended words, choking on them again as her stomach heaved.

"Great!" he roared. "Great, if we could just cross-reference and catalog all the evidence markers. I need three techs in nitro to sweep for trace. This is an arson scene, so you need nylon bags. I want all the bone fragments from the burst skull put in Teflon cans and heat-sealed before we ship them back to the Jeffersonian."

He turned to Brennan and asked caustically, "Did I miss anything? No. I don't think so." Then he turned back to the flabbergasted CSI crew. "Let's go. _Move_!"

Brennan's lips had pinched in irritation at first, when Booth interrupted her. That was followed a moment later by confusion and finally a vague terror. Her breath caught sharply on a sensation of being punched that knocked her diaphragm into spasm. Then her face slowly fell blank as Booth's rant continued and everyone looked at her for her reaction.

_She stood beside a locker, holding Brainy Smurf in her hand while everyone looked at her to see what Morticia would do. They all laughed, seeing her distress._

It was an old defense mechanism that kicked in—when she was hurt, she knew it was best not to let her feelings show. _Never let them see you cry._

Cam and Hodgins glanced warily at each other, then at each partner in concern. Brennan had gone as still as stone until Booth finished roaring her instructions for her. Then, clinging tightly to her composure and maintaining a professional front when she bent down to the body, she issued her own dangerously barbed orders to Hodgins and Cam. "Let's prep the body for removal."

Noting their hesitation, she insisted tightly, "Right away."

"Yep. Ohh-kay." Hodgins moved immediately to obey. He knew Brennan well enough to know she was going to turn brutally exacting. She always got harsh and rigid when she was upset and this scene had deeply upset her. He'd seen her upset and trying to hide it more than once over the years.

Clenching her jaw, she took refuge in fact and method. People were changeable and confusing, but facts were immutable. The method never changed. Focusing on the task of gathering facts let her forget for a little while that she was confused and terribly uneasy. Booth had hobbled away in anger, complaining about his shoe. He said nothing else to her the rest of the morning.

~Q~

Removing the body took about an hour; and finding the pieces of shattered skull took considerably longer. Once all the pieces seemed to have been recovered they were delivered to the Jeffersonian along with the body. Brennan took the fractured pieces of skull to the Ookie room for x-raying and debridement, leaving her intern, Mr. Finn Abernathy, to assist Cam.

Finding solace in the silence of Zack's old working space, away from all reminders of her personal life and partnership with Booth, Brennan's mind settled to the task of restoration. The first order of business was x-rays, followed by collection of DNA and histology samples for Cam. Next, she used plastic forceps to tease away adhering tissue. Using a water bottle with a small tube and soft-bristled brush, she squirted water over the bones, being careful to wash away the dirt and debris into a soft cloth filter that Hodgins would pick over later.

At last, the fragments were clean and dry, ready for her to examine. She looked at each one carefully, visualizing its location within the larger shape of a typical skull. Every heat-damaged piece appeared to fit within a 10 cm by 8 cm area of the victim's left Tempo-Parietal, making her confident that they all belonged to the male in the oil barrel. Finally, she began the careful process of arranging and gluing the pieces together using methyl methacrylate 'super glue.' As she slowly assembled the blown-out portion of skull, circular fracture lines were revealed, suggesting the skull had been locally exposed to high temperatures and explaining in part how the blow-out had occurred. The brain inside had possibly steamed or even boiled, creating intense pressure that ruptured the bone from within.

Because it was an unusual source of post-mortem bone damage, this opportunity to show her intern a rare effect of intense heat was not to be ignored. Seeking Mr. Abernathy on the central forensics platform, she encountered Cam on her way back from the autopsy suite instead.

"We just got an ID," Cam said brightly, passing the file she'd just started on the man who turned out to be Richard Bartlett, a well-established divorce attorney with high fees and a fearsome reputation.

"Already?" Brennan felt a small wave of disappointment that flesh had won this round against bone. She sighed, shaking her head at her own competitive foolishness.

"Our guest to the barbeque had triple-bypass surgery recently," Cam explained as she slid her access badge through the reader guarding the platform. "Stents."

"Ah." Brennan paused, her excitement over the probable source of skull fragmentation lost as she recognized the consequences of such a rapid identification. Someone would have to inform a particular agent at the FBI. "Did you tell Booth?"

Cam halted half way up the stairs, her brows lifted. "Isn't that your call to make…?"

She pressed her lips together, conceding the point. "Yes. I'll notify him immediately."

"Is everything okay between you two?"

"Of course," Brennan replied briskly.

Turning and completing her journey to the top, Cam shook her head. "Things seemed a little tense this morning."

Brennan's steps slowed, her eyes deliberately settling on the monitors displaying a series of x-rays, instead of Cam. Her mind was still caught on the crime scene that morning; on stilted car rides and a cold breakfast before that. She didn't want to think about any of it and wished Cam hadn't said anything to ruin the hard-won tranquility she'd worked for all morning.

"It must feel strange," Cam continued.

"What is strange," Brennan inquired distractedly.

"Getting back into your routines after being separated for so long."

Finally forced to abandon the x-rays, Brennan turned to Cam and engaged the argument more fully if only to get it over with as soon as possible. "It was only three months. We were apart for seven months when I went to Maluku and Booth went to Afghanistan, and we were fine when we got back then, too."

Cam stepped to the body, lifting her lab notes and checking to ensure she had sampled all the tissues for toxicology before she sent the body to the morgue for safe-keeping. "You weren't a couple with a baby then."

A cold feeling swept over her. "We're fine," she repeated forcefully.

Cam nodded agreeably. "So that's why you're procrastinating about informing your partner whose death he's investigating? Because everything's fine?"

Stung at the suggestion she would let a personal situation interfere with her comportment as a dedicated professional, Brennan whirled and retreated from the platform. "I didn't think taking five minutes to check out the x-rays constituted 'procrastinating,'" she muttered.

"I wouldn't think so either," Cam shot back in amusement. "Except that ordinarily when you say 'immediately,' you follow through with immediate action. This time, you didn't."

Brennan growled and retreated to her office. Stalking to her desk, she reached for her messenger bag and rooted around for her cell phone. She gazed at it accusingly, noticing no calls (from Booth), which was unusual. By now he should have called or sent her a text suggesting lunch. Maybe he'd just been busy with the investigation, she decided. There were several missed calls (not from Booth), but those didn't matter to her. Dismissing them, she held her thumb over the speed dial and … hesitated.

Cam's taunt about procrastinating snicked through her like an annoying sibling's tease: irritating and impossible to ignore. Suddenly she pushed aggressively on the speed dial button, determined to prove to Cam, if not to herself, that there was absolutely nothing wrong.

He answered promptly, all business. She lifted the file and reported they had an ID from three arterial stents placed less than two years ago: Richard Bartlett, Attorney at Law. The call flowed so smoothly she could almost imagine that this morning hadn't happened. After promising to swing by and pick her up before he contacted the next-of-kin, Booth ended the call with, "I love you."

Granted, it had sounded hurried and rather like an afterthought, but she took it as a sign of hope.

"I love you too, Booth."

A dial tone sounded in her ear. He'd hung up so fast she wasn't sure he'd heard it. But he'd said it first, that had to mean something. Brennan's hand fell away, her phone still glowing gently in her palm, until its belated recognition that the connection had been severed finally caused its light to go out.

~Q~

A Note on Forensics: Details regarding the examination and reconstruction of the skull as described in the chapter were verified with the aid of the following resources:

Skeletal Trauma: Identification of Injuries Resulting from Human Rights Abuse and Armed Conflict. Kimmerle, Erin H and Jose Pablo Baraybar, CRC Press, 2008. _Differential Diagnosis of Skeletal Injuries_. Pg 21-87.

Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death: Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to the Investigation of Crime Scenes, 3rd Ed., Spitz, Werner U. Charles C Thomas Press, 1993. _Thermal Injuries_. Pg 433-436 (Warning for the Squeamish: Don't. Just ... don't. Trust me.)

~Q~

Author's Note: The next chapter is already finished and will be posted next weekend. We're heading back into the time machine. Where do you think we should go next?


	4. I Calculate the Probability of Success

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of value pertaining to Bones, except for my Human Osteology book.

Author's Appreciation: To all of the people who are reading, and especially to those who have left me reviews, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It motivates me a lot to see that people are enjoying what I've been writing.

Author's Note: This chapter is a monster. It was really hard to write. Well, actually, that's not true. It was easy to write, and write, and keep on writing... my mind went in a thousand different directions because there is just soooo much to chose from. Finding a way to encapsulate eight years of a relationship into one comprehensive chapter proved to be quite a challenge, especially since my goal was to try to capture why Brennan has so much faith and confidence in Booth.

My personal challenge to keep it all contained in one chapter ended in failure. But that is a bonus for you readers because what was meant to be one chapter being posted this weekend has ended up being two!

So, first is 'part one,' where we get to hop back into the time machine and see some fireworks when Booth and Brennan meet. Next will be 'part two,' still back in the past and looking at the development of Booth and Brennan's relationship.

~Q~

**Chapter Four**

_I start calculating the probability of success._

"Do you believe in fate?" That's what he asked her, this striking man with a well-muscled physique hiding beneath a nondescript black suit. He dared to interrupt her lecture, distract her students, and challenge her expertise. He dared to flirt with her, she supposed, since that angelically beautiful smile couldn't possibly be considered the most business-appropriate way to introduce himself as an agent of the FBI.

"Absolutely not. Ludicrous." She dismissed the notion with a slight toss of her head. Fate not only defied mathematical probability, it implied a great cruelty existed that had arbitrarily designated some people for success and others for devastation. That no one had any choice at all, in anything. She would never believe in fate, in destiny. And yet, looking into his warm brown eyes, Dr. Temperance Brennan felt herself responding in a way that defied logic every bit as much as fate did. Her heart accelerated, her face felt warm, her limbs tingled with awareness.

She would never admit to anyone just how much she felt in that moment, as if merely laying eyes on Seeley Booth had changed her biochemistry and the course of her life all at once, even before she knew his name. It wasn't fate—there was no such thing as fate. But could pheromones alone rewire a brain? Could biochemistry explain the way his smile awakened something in her soul that felt like hope?

In the few days they worked his cold case together, he named her "Bones" and invited her into an interrogation room just to convince her to trust his 'gut.' His eyes captured hers time and again and she was helpless to look away even when she knew she wasn't behaving rationally. None of this was rational. It was more like falling off a cliff and finding she had wings she'd never known about that caught her and sent her soaring.

Standing beside the ornate staircase of the baroque theater where Jemma Arrington had given her final performance, Brennan watched Special Agent Seeley Booth unravel a Federal Judge's composure with steely determination. She observed Judge Hasty closely, noting he had not reacted well to the blunt accusations she'd helped Agent Booth lob at him. He'd laughed derisively at their story of him chasing a young woman through the opera house until she tripped and flipped and crashed unconscious at the bottom of a back stairway. Yet Booth skillfully turned every deflection back on the slimy man, until the only defense left was to glare at Brennan and imply she was making it all up.

"And she's making _you_ look like an idiot," Hasty concluded, dismissing Booth with a sneer.

Brennan frowned, trying to follow the judge's logic. Booth was an idiot because he had listened to her…? She shook her head. "No. In fact, I am very intelligent." She briefly considered relating her actual intelligence quotient, but suspected the significance of the number would be lost on the judge. He struck her as being somewhere much closer to the norm than she was, probably only in the 'above average' range at best.

Then again, she amended, the judge might possibly be even less intelligent than the average, considering how aggressively he was behaving in front of the FBI Agent who had just accused him of murder. Hasty stepped into Brennan's personal space, oozing contempt. "Yeah? You could have fooled me."

She blinked in confusion when he got too close, her body frozen in anticipation as she felt his hostility pressing her back. Suddenly her role as the observer evaporated and she was the observed. She'd been a scared teenager once, helpless to know how to take care of herself when someone glared at her with such venom and malicious intent. Leroy Erickson's fury had taught her fear and recoil all those years ago, fear she had worked so hard to overcome that she wouldn't have predicted what happened next. When Miles Hasty stepped into her space, he would bring it all boiling back to the surface nearly fifteen years later.

"You're ridiculous!" He hissed, his eyes hard under beetling eyebrows. And then, then he grabbed her arm to jerk her out of his way.

Fingers closed over her wrist, started to pull and squeeze … _Erickson's heavy hand dragging her screaming toward the gaping black trunk, but this time she would **fight**, damn it!_ … and the instinct to attack flared up out of nowhere, everywhere, or somewhere deep inside.

Brennan's fist snapped forward so fast no one saw it coming, least of all Brennan herself. She felt something soft make contact with the second, third and fourth proximal phalanges of her right hand and only realized a full ten seconds later that she had hit the judge.

He let go immediately, gasping and reaching for his damaged nasal cartilage with a groan.

Brennan stalked forward as he fell back, her long-buried anger building, her memories conflating his face with Leroy Erickson. He looked at up at her again in contempt and that hand that wasn't fully hers whipped forward again. The second blow knocked him to his knees with a decidedly unmanly moan.

Brennan blinked and the strange fugue faded away, leaving her to wonder where Leroy Erickson went and why the judge was moaning at her feet and … her hand hurt. Her fingers unclenched, telling her that _she_ had done this, somehow. That he hadn't somehow managed to fall onto her fist twice.

She shivered, sensing Seeley Booth stepping towards her with an approval that confused her. Sounding almost like a child, she asked weakly, "Is this very bad?"

And he laughed, clearly delighted with this turn of events. "I have been wanting to do that for years." His warm brown eyes slid over her like soothing hands, reassuring. "You are _so hot_!"

Two hours later he called her and they arranged to meet for drinks at 8pm that night.

He flirted and teased, let his eyes linger on her lips, and then told her she was fired over a bottle of tequila already half consumed. She felt surges of uncertainty and euphoria whipping her back and forth. What did this mean? How could she be hot and fired in the same day?

The rain-spattered kiss that followed assured her that something about Booth was different. Exhilarating. Unforgettable. She started it but he took over immediately. His mouth stroked silken fire against hers and made every synapse in her body explode into a frenzy. She was overwhelmed by all of him and the way he surrounded her: his hands molding her to him, his tongue darting in to taste, his scent, the throbbing hum of his voice when she opened her mouth to let him in. The erotic intensity of it blew her mind apart into subatomic particles too scattered to retrieve. She left because he'd drenched them both in tequila and she couldn't be sure what any of it meant while she was so intoxicated with alcohol and her own hormones that were being hyper-stimulated by Seeley Booth's pheromones. What did he intend…? She would figure it out in the morning when her head wasn't spinning.

When morning arrived, so did he. The answer, when she followed the evidence to its conclusion, was manipulation. Seduction. He breezed into the lab saying nothing about the night before other than, "You're back, baby! You're rehired."

"You got me drunk to fire me and then have sex with me," she accused.

His denial was all but an admission. "You decided not to have sex with me. … So, you're regretting that decision?"

And the consequence of that answer, she discovered, was pain. After discovering he could set her aloft on wings of delight, she also learned those wings were made of wax. She'd gone too far, felt too much, and the heat of it all melted the wings and crashed her back to earth. Back to Reality as Temperance Brennan had come to know it.

Hormones cause temporary effects such as euphoria, delusion, and insanity.  
Sound decision making cannot take place while under the influence of hormones, or tequila.  
All relationships are temporary.  
Promises mean nothing.  
Love doesn't exist.

Disillusionment and a bone-deep hurt made her turn cold in a last-ditch effort to prevent further pain. Brennan was in full retreat, trying to extract herself from the vulnerability because it seemed like everything had changed from the moment she got into the cab without him. When she argued with him this time, instead of acting amused as he had before, this time Booth reacted with surprising aggression. They traded insults, and she pushed all of her confusion behind a desperate mask of cold anger.

When he grabbed her arm and jerked her roughly to her feet, dragging her out of an interview with the victim's family, yet again she felt an ancient fury at the manhandling rise up in her like Leviathan. When his face turned so angry, when his fingers tightened so deeply around her arm that it made her fingers throb, yet again she flashed back to Leroy Erikson's leering face as he dragged her to the car, and that propelled Temperance Brennan's fist into yet another man's shocked face. Special Agents, Federal Judges, Foster Fathers, they all thought she could be grabbed? Pushed around? Yelled at.

Everything was building, building … and there was no outlet. Not even her fist connecting violently with his zygomatic where it fused to the maxilla could discharge the potential energy. The charge had begun building the previous day, but his betrayal and then each successive insult added another surge of electric rage, until she reached capacity at last when Booth sneered that she used her brain to make other people feel stupid.

Her mother had warned her once that men often feared intelligent women. After all the hell of her adolescence, Brennan had learned that being intelligent was the only thing she had, the only weapon she'd ever had. When everything else was stripped away from her—family, home, possessions, lovers who leave eventually—all she had left was her own intelligence. And every male she'd ever met seemed to either use her or despise her for it.

_She heard Leroy Erikson. "You and your big brain!" She heard Andy Pfluger. "Smurfette just isn't your type." She heard a young man named Nathan Blackburn telling her why he wasn't interested. "I'm sorry, Tempe, but you intimidate me. You're too smart." She heard Judge Hasty. "You're ridiculous."_

"You _are_ a stupid man. I hate you!" she screamed. She wasn't even sure who she was screaming at: she hated them all. She was going to cry, her emotions spilling out wildly right here in the FBI bull pen, in front of a dozen witnesses. _Never let them see you cry._

"What are you, ten years old? I'm not your father!"

He hadn't touched her physically this time, but the words jerked her violently all the same. Her breath whooshed out of her at the stunning impact, making her gasp. A moment later, Brennan somehow found her stolen breath had returned as a gust of icy wind to blow over the flaming coals consuming her composure, covering her wrath with a cold, hard glacier. Everything about her went rigid as if she had frozen clear through. Even her voice sounded like black, treacherous ice.

"I will _never_ work with you again."

The cold only lasted as long as it took her to stalk over to her coat and slam her way out of his office. Before the elevator could get all the way to the ground floor, the unquenchable flames of hurt and anger were licking eagerly at her icy shield, melting it so fast that she was a roiling mess once more when she hit the lobby.

She ran from the J Edgar Hoover building, stumbling onto the warm brick sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue with the clumsiness born of an all-too-familiar agitation. She had worked so hard to bury what was left of shy Tempe under bold Dr. Brennan, and until today she'd thought she had succeeded. Never since striding forward to claim her PhD had she been this flustered, this _vulnerable_. The sounds of traffic and tourists halted her and she gasped again to find herself so scattered and out of control.

She had let him get too close and now she was paying the price. Too many emotions, too many memories, all instigated by the effect Seeley Booth had on her. She had covered all the old wounds and yet, Booth had gotten close enough to rip them all open. Tipping her head up to the summer sky, she peered through the lacy green leaves of the trees lining the street, peered clear through to the rich cerulean blue, and tried to find her equilibrium.

The Jeffersonian offered clinical refuge only two blocks ahead of her, but Brennan knew she wasn't ready to go there yet. Instinctively, she turned left and walked across 9th to the Naval Memorial. The white noise from the ring of fountains drowned out the noise in her head and with relief she sank down onto the granite edge while her eyes went unfocused and her breathing calmed.

People who had the same idea were perched in small clusters here and there, only half of them were tourists. The background voices, soothing water, bleating car horns and rumble of a jet landing at Reagan National Airport nearby lulled her back into a near stupor. She was alone at last and it felt good. It felt normal.

~Q~

"Do you believe in fate?" he whispered in her dreams at night.

With just that one kiss in the rain, he had possessed her.

His mouth scalded her, his tongue invaded her mouth just as he had invaded her life. Their shared kiss flashed into her memories at the most inopportune moments, stealing her breath and twisting her belly without mercy. Out of nowhere she would suddenly hear him, smell him, feel his hands and lips on her just as intensely as if it were real. Somehow Seeley Booth had managed to etch himself into her so completely that neither waking nor sleeping could offer any escape. No matter where she went, the flashbacks followed.

It got particularly bad when she ovulated, a fact which utterly infuriated her. Even her own body had betrayed her with hormones she couldn't control.

In an act of pure defiance she flipped open her computer and started writing, hoping words could purge the memories, the emotions, the turmoil. All of the passion, the burning need, the furious denial that she needed him, it all poured onto virtual paper. Page after page, she rewrote history and told the story the way she wished it could have happened. No, there's no such thing as fate. We write our own stories, and hers got longer, deeper, darker and better with each page.

When she finished the story, it had grown to nearly 600 pages. The book, Bred to the Bone, was immediately accepted for publishing by the first publishing house she submitted it to. The editor had swooned over the passion and sexual tension between the protagonist and her FBI partner. It was sure to be a best-seller.

~Q~

He had called her the next day and she refused to answer the phone. His emails were deleted without being opened. Day after day he tried, again and again. Despite his extraordinary determination, she refused to engage him and waited for Booth to finally acknowledge what she already knew so well. All relationships are temporary, and Brennan had decided her relationship with Seeley Booth had run its dangerous course.

She would never let him get too close again. She didn't believe in fate or masochism.

But he did.

For some reason he persisted, through an entire thirteen months. She never could understand why he refused to accept her vehement silence, aside from the possibility that Seeley Booth had never failed to charm a woman in his life and he wasn't about to let her ruin his perfect record. He kept calling and emailing and she kept deleting each and every attempt at communication.

Determined to escape Booth and needing a distraction, she accepted Dr. Peter Wysoski's equally diligent requests for her companionship on a social outing. The physicist was pleasantly attractive and quite intelligent. His occupation as a researcher at Georgetown University was interesting and a secure source of income. By any objective standard, Peter was potentially a good mate. She threw herself into the relationship, even going so far as to let him move in with her when the lease on his apartment was up for renewal.

That decision ended up being a bad one. He became possessive and demanding, insisting that her long working hours were unacceptable and her lack of intimacy was preventing their relationship from developing. As it began to fall apart, Brennan retreated even further. The breakup was inevitable, punctuated by yelling on his part and feigned indifference on hers. He told her it was over two days before she was scheduled to board a plane to Guatemala for six weeks.

When she returned she was followed, hassled and finally arrested by a Homeland Security Agent, ostensibly for carrying a human skull in her luggage. The reason seemed fabricated, however; she couldn't imagine how he could possibly know she actually had a skull with her. Those suspicions were confirmed when Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI suddenly appeared. Claiming she worked for him, he was dressed to kill and had that lethal charm smile firmly in place.

"You set me up!" she accused.

Agent Gibson smirked and therefore all but confessed to his complicity.

"At least I picked you up at the airport," Booth shrugged without the slightest bit of remorse.

Nothing she did to dissuade him had any impact, not even her challenge to let her have full participation in the case. Field work, at his side, just like before. She counted on him saying no to that, so she could get back to pretending they'd never met.

Instead, he said yes. "Spit in my hand, we're Scully and Mulder."

That was when the surprises began.

~Q~

To be continued...

Author's Note: This chapter grew so long that I decided to break it into two parts. This is part one that I'm posting today (Friday). Part two (chapter 5) will post on Sunday and is still set in the past. Chapter 6 will return to the present.


	5. My Most Meaningful Relationships

Disclaimer: I don't have any right to use the characters or any plot lines from Bones, but I'm doing it anyway. The only profit I get is the enjoyment of writing.

Author's Note: I am posting this a day earlier than I planned because Chosenname asked. For the record, no bribes were exchanged. The virtual puppy-dog eyes and quivering lower lip were too hard to resist. :D

This is 'part two' to chapter 4. We are still back in the past here, but this is where it gets good (if I do say so myself).

~Q~

**Chapter Five**

_My most meaningful relationships are with dead people._

Promises mean nothing, but Seeley Booth kept every one he ever made to her. She promised Shawn Cook her friend in the FBI would make sure he and his brother got to go back to their loving foster mother ... and Booth made it happen.

She asked him not to make her translate threats to a terrified immigrant and he relented, finding another way to get the information he needed. He told her he understood why she couldn't do it.

So she asked him a favor—to look into the disappearance of her parents—and he said he was honored.

Everyone eventually leaves, but Booth stayed. She pushed and she dodged and she deflected, but he kept turning up when he thought she needed him and even when he was sure she didn't. They slowly found a way to work effectively together, although their interactions still tended towards strained and occasionally rancorous.

Then she went out to meet a date for dinner and someone took a shot at her. Booth's 'alpha male tendencies' sprang to life, much to Brennan's astonishment. He followed her everywhere, chased off her date, invited himself home with her. She wasn't sure that it was necessary and she was pretty sure she didn't like it.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight until we find out who is trying to kill you."

Brennan's irritation had lingered throughout the day, until their goofy dance to Foreigner's Hot Blooded made her laugh and decide spending off time with Booth wasn't such a threat to her sanity after all. He didn't put the moves on her like he tried before, a fact that was curiously disappointing. She mused on the paradox of her own feelings: as much as she'd sworn she only wanted him to respect her as a work partner, now that he apparently did she was almost disappointed that he was behaving toward her with nothing other than friendly disinterest.

He went to get himself a drink, claiming he wasn't a guest, and she stood facing her stereo while trying to comprehend what all these mixed up impulses towards Booth could mean.

The noise blasted behind her, loud enough to replace Foreigner with a piercing squeal in her ears that lasted several hours. Strong enough to pound her back with a fist of heat, followed by the pelting of small bits of metal, plastic, wood, ceramic and a haze of smoke. Bright enough to snap her eyes closed reflexively. Sudden enough to make her leap and spin, her heart exploding in turn beneath her sternum as her dazed neurons tried to collate all the chaotic information streaming in from every one of her senses so they could tell her what had just happened.

Smoke and fire consumed her kitchen. Booth lay on the floor, blackened, and his clothing was on fire and he wasn't moving and his eyes were closed and she shook herself as it all registered in a blur.

Without conscious thought—because her brain had become fixed and dilated on Booth, worried and searching for an explanation—her feet rushed her to the arm chair where she liked to read because she had a blanket there and somehow her feet knew she needed the blanket. Somehow her arms knew to grab it up while her feet took over again and got her to Booth. Her knees knew to fold, collapsing her at his side and her hands began frantically snuffing out the flames with the blanket and her brain finally crashed back into full functioning with a belated realization that Booth had somehow triggered a bomb.

A bomb meant for her.

Booth had absorbed the explosion meant for her, suffering burns and broken bones and oh, God, what if there were internal injuries?! He could have died because he was trying to protect her, leaving his four year old son without a father. Brennan was introduced to a different kind of fear, the first time she'd ever been frightened for another person. She didn't want Booth to die, nor to be hurt because of her. She didn't want little Parker to grow up without his parents the way she had.

She followed the ambulance to the hospital, needing to know he was going to survive. Wanting to apologize, too, because this was…. Her fault? No, she didn't plant the bomb. She didn't intend this, she didn't expect Booth to be so much in harm's way. If she had thought he might get hurt, she'd have left, or at least prevented him from getting too close. It wasn't her fault, nor her doing, yet she felt responsible. And guilty. And grateful. And remorseful, because she hadn't forgiven him for that tequila-tainted first case.

Sitting by his bed in the early morning hours, calmer now that she knew his burns were no worse than second degree and his broken bones would remodel and his internal organs had not sustained any serious damage, she watched Booth sleep.

Brennan studied Booth's face under the bruises and burns, her eyes detecting his bone structure under the flesh and cataloging it. A narrow Zygomatic that stayed low and tight under his orbital ridge, indicating his Caucasian ancestry. The robust mental eminence that signaled a strong level of testosterone. Symmetrical bilateral orbits, perfectly spaced within the 'golden ratio,' indicating superior DNA and suitability as a mate. He was a near-perfect exemplar of male beauty. In layman's terms, as Angela would have said, he was 'hot.'

But she'd already known all this, right from the first moment he stood in front of her and teased her about fate.

Now there was so much more to see. She could look at his x-rays displayed on the light boxes and see his history written in the bones. A blow to his arm. Torture in the Middle East. Another explosion, his body pressed up against someone else's.

She couldn't read people at all—she'd always known that. People didn't make sense to her: their words rarely matched their actions, and their irrational, emotion-driven behaviors were impossible for her to understand. People were unpredictable and opaque. Her misreading of Booth over a year ago had caused excruciating confusion and pain.

_Do you believe in fate?_

At this moment, because he'd been injured from the bomb that was supposed to kill _her_, because she'd been worried and insisted on staying at his side, because his doctor had left the x-rays up and the light boxes illuminated, Booth was open to her. His bones glowed their misty truths to her in the language she understood, revealing through their ridges, depressions, notches, and shadows the man he was. His bones told her everything she needed to know.

She saw the rough and uneven metatarsals and the misshapen calcaneus that carried him around, knowing his feet had been repeatedly broken over the course of several weeks, just beginning to heal and then smashed again, and again and … five weeks total, she concluded. Now her eyes drifted to the next set of x-rays and took in the once-upon-a-time graceful lines and curves of his ribs, noting the small calluses of remodeling dotting the curves. His ribs had spread out over someone from the explosion's compression wave, giving him faint hinge fractures. Moving to his arms, she saw the remnants of an old Monteggia fracture, also called a 'nightstick' injury, a defensive injury sustained when he was roughly twelve years old. But it was on the right radius, not the ulna, indicating he'd thrown his arm out over someone or something. He wasn't protecting himself. She could see the injuries that caused it all, and that meant she could see _him_.

He was strong, he was brave, he protected people. It was written in his bones and now she knew him in a way that she had never known another living human being.

When he woke a few hours later, she wanted to tell him that she'd misjudged him, but didn't know how to say it. Instead, she stayed with him and handed him the pudding when he whimpered for it. Words failed her, so she left the hospital with Special Agent Jamie Kenton, determined to find the person who had hurt Booth instead of her.

When the threat to her turned out to be Kenton himself, she was caught off guard and fell too easily. She found herself alone, imprisoned and facing death again (for the third time in her fairly short and all-too-eventful life, and this would be the last time, she was sure).

The only regret was that she hadn't told Booth she was wrong. She'd been wrong about him. Brennan had never liked admitting when she was in error, but today she'd seen the truth of Booth and knew she owed him so many things. Apologies, thanks, forgiveness, second chances, loyalty, friendship, devotion. It was an unbearable load of regret weighing down her mind and bringing wracking sobs to her body when Kenton raised his gun to make the killing blow.

Half an hour earlier, she'd still hoped she might get that second chance.

~Q~

Kenton had brought her under his control with the simple act of pulling a gun on her. Before she could grasp the full extent of his intentions, he had her bound and was pushing her through the darkened hallways of an abandoned factory.

Brennan stumbled, half on purpose to stall for time. _Think_, she ordered herself. She looked around, quickly taking stock of her surroundings and situation. She was alone, with her hands bound behind her. Special Agent Jamie Kenton was half a foot taller, armed, and well-trained in hand-to-hand combat. She had no chance at fighting him (she'd already tried that), but escape still might be possible. She watched, looked, noticing everything and cataloging it in terms of potential use. A board that could be used as a bat. A dark corner, possibly a hiding spot. Doors that might have locks.

All this was running through Brennan's mind, while Kenton was walking her deeper into the shadowy, empty factory. He was talking, explaining why he had killed Cugini. "You don't get rich working for the FBI," Kenton said. "But once you start benefitting from the Romano family, then you owe them favors. They want Cugini dead, you don't have any choice."

"Is that how you're justifying it?" she asked. "Telling yourself you don't have a choice? There's always a choice."

"Sure. Kill or be killed," he shrugged. "If you connect Cugini to my gun, I'll be arrested. Once I hit the jail, the Romanos will have me killed within 24 hours, because I know too much. It's you or me, Dr. Brennan. No offense, but I would rather it wasn't me."

They entered a smaller room in the factory's interior. The room was dark, lacking windows. Brennan noticed several things: a sturdy chair in the center of the room; two large Rottweiler dogs, straining on chains, were tied to loops in the wall; a huge hook for hoisting heavy objects—a car engine?—was suspended from the ceiling; the chair was placed carefully under the hook. Kenton had planned this, hours ago. He'd been planning to kill her like one of Hollings' victims.

Flashes filled her mind. Blood. A skeleton, spread-eagle, with its arms lifted painfully and lashed to ropes hung from the ceiling. Dogs. Knives. Eyes gouged out. Old memories of being trapped flickered behind the new horrors she'd seen only in the last few days. She swallowed as a rising tide of fear was threatening to shut her down. Brennan pushed all of the memories away, both the old and the new. She pushed the knowing away because she needed to be clear, so she could think. So she could act. She had to escape, _now_.

"It's nice to know that I'm dying for a good reason." It came out so calmly she might have been discussing the weather. Using her conversational tone to disarm him, Brennan gathered her strength, turned, leaped and threw both of her feet in tandem into Kenton's chest. The twin blows threw him off balance. He crashed backwards. Brennan landed, pivoted, darted past him. She had one chance, just one.

Kenton was on her again, faster and stronger. And a lot angrier this time. He threw his weight into her back, knocking her down. Brennan twisted, lashing out with flailing feet. She kicked him again and again, driving him back and away from her. Meanwhile, her brain was hard at work on Plan B. She had tried twice to outrun him, and failed. Seeing Kenton's gun a few feet away gave her an idea.

Aiming a powerful blow to Kenton's nose, Brennan scrambled up and raced to the gun. She awkwardly squatted, picked it up behind her. Before she could get a decent grip, Kenton was on her again. His body slammed her down to the hard cement floor, face forward. Her ribs screamed in protest at the sudden increase in weight and pressure. Brennan used her legs to grip him around the chest, hoping she could squeeze the breath out of him. But now Kenton had the gun. He brought his hand up and slammed the stock into her head. She collapsed again, feeling all sound and fury rushing away in a wash of hazy red light.

With a bemused, clinical detachment, Brennan felt blood dribbling down her face and a painful throbbing that had now erupted in her chest. Breathing hurt, but she thought she was not too badly injured: bruised ribs, perhaps. On the other hand, pain and swelling were tormenting her in her head. She wondered if she was already developing a deadly brain bleed, or brain swelling that would steal her life. Would there be marks in her skull? Would anyone even find her to check?

She knew she had to move, had to escape. No one was coming for her, no one ever did. She was alone in this, as always, so if she wanted to survive she had to save herself. Yet every breath and even the slightest movement brought tears of pain. He'd hit her too hard. Brennan tried to gather her strength, tried to rise up on her knees. Maybe she could crawl away.

Before she could go even a foot, Kenton was lifting her with surprising gentleness, setting her into the chair. Quickly, he untied her hands, but had them tied again in front of her before she could do more than moan out a protest. He lifted her tightly bound hands up, hanging them from the hook. Brennan found herself strung up like a side of beef. _That's what I'm going to be,_ she realized. Meat for the dogs. He quickly tied her feet to the chair legs, shoved a gag into her mouth and tied it tightly behind her head, then stood back.

"It's sick, what some people do. When I was killing him, Hollings said he used the keys to unlock the souls behind their eyes." Kenton looked at her, preparing himself for the final steps. "He's a monster. No one will miss him, no one will look for him. It's sad that he had one last victim in mind before he disappeared." He pulled a Swiss army knife out of his pocket and opened it. Carefully, Kenton held the knife's blade over a rough concrete brick and used a piece of scrap iron to jam it down … creating a nick in the blade.

_Who is going to examine me,_ Brennan wondered. Zack? Will Zack realize the nicks don't match, that this is a different knife? Her hands twisted, attempting to squirm out of the ropes binding her. She felt the chafing, her skin tearing; her blood oozed down between her wrists and arms, slick and hot. She twisted harder, and knew that these marks were going to tell someone that she'd been conscious. That she'd spent her last minutes fighting. They would see the damage to her ribs, the marks in her skull, know that she'd been briefly crushed and struck with a blunt object. But Hollings never hit his victims. Would they realize that? Would they figure it out?

Knowing what was going to happen, seeing the damage and envisioning it, seeing her own bones sprawling on the chair, brought both peace and terror in equal measures. Brennan focused on the crime scene, imagining how they would catalogue her remains. She would be shipped to a lab, her bones looked over carefully. They would clean her, treat her with care. They would look at every mark of the knife, the mark of dog's teeth, the broken and remodeled bone from when she'd jumped off the swings at age seven. She would be given a proper rest at the end. She knew this, because she knew Kenton needed her to be found. He needed her to be Hollings' last victim.

But before all that, she was going to bleed. The dogs were going to tear her into pieces, eating, gorging. Her eyes were going to be gouged out. Brennan gasped raggedly, finding that knowing what was going to happen, being familiar with the ghastly results in such excruciating detail, made it far more difficult to stay calm and rational. Being tied up and completely helpless made it even worse. Her heart was thundering in her chest, beating so hard it hurt worse than her head. Though her thoughts were sharpening again, her body was weak and immobile. Nothing was going to stop this from happening.

Booth would see her afterwards, she suddenly realized with horror. This scene was set to look like Hollings had killed her, and Hollings was Booth's case. Booth would see her bones in the same gruesome display that had torn him up already when it was just a young woman he didn't know. He would be upset, blame himself. She shuddered with regret, knowing that he would suffer over her death because he knew her and had promised to keep her safe. She felt the guilt of knowing that she had stumbled over words and missed her one opportunity this morning to tell him she knew who he was, so he wouldn't even have her forgiveness as a comfort.

In the end it wasn't fear of her own death that broke Brennan's spirit, it was the fear of what it was going to do to Booth. It was the regret of not truly seeing the man he was until it was too late. It was knowing she'd missed so much._ I'm sorry, Booth. I'm so sorry…._

Kenton had returned from his task, facing her. He looked down into her pale face, streaked with blood and tears, bruised, and terrified. "I'm not a monster like Hollings," he said softly. "There are things I have to do to you, but I won't let you suffer. You'll be gone when it happens. You won't feel it, I promise."

He raised his arm high over her head, holding the stock of his pistol like a hammer.

Screaming through the gag, the single word—"No!"—was too muffled to be understood.

This was it. Brennan could do nothing but look up into the calculating eyes of the man who was going to kill her. His hand was raised, and as he started to step around behind her, she knew the gun stock was going to smash down on her skull. He would crush her, render her unconscious, and then she was going to bleed and be torn apart. And Booth was going to be crushed as well. This was the last thing she'd ever know, and her last thought was that she wanted to see Booth one more time. She wanted to tell him. She wished she could tell him….

A shot sounded, loud. Then another. Brennan screamed again involuntarily, thinking for a moment that he'd shot her somehow, some way, even though she could still see his gun high above her. Kenton froze, stiffened, his eyes looking shocked. A small smear of red had burst out of the bottom of Kenton's arm. A much bigger red stain exploded across Kenton's chest. He looked down at her, at himself, bewildered. Kenton was falling, he fell, he was down at her feet. She couldn't understand why.

Her head jerked in the direction of the sound and she saw someone moving toward her. Still terrified and now disoriented, she tried to wrench her body away despite the bindings that held her trapped.

Then someone was there, pulling the gag away and putting gentle arms around her. Someone familiar, someone who smelled safe and warm, and strangely antiseptic. "It's okay, it's over," he was saying.

Then he was lifting, halting when she proved too heavy for his weakened arms, slipping her arms over his head and using his own body to lift her off the hook, bringing both her and the chair up and then back down to safety. She fell forward onto her knees and into him. He was close, so close, and holding her tight against his warm body.

Booth.

She sobbed, clinging to him.

Sliding his arms further around her, he pulled her closer. Her body trembled, her arms shaking and every movement sent darts of pain through her bruised ribs. _Do you believe in fate?_ She tried to burrow into him so deeply that he would know she was sorry and grateful and relieved and a thousand other swirling feelings that she couldn't have named even if she were calm.

As she pushed herself into him and put pressure on his injured clavicle, he flinched, yet he did not pull away. Instead, he drew his arms even tighter, as if giving her permission to go deeper and stay. So stay she did. Brennan wanted nothing more than to feel his body against hers, his arms surrounding her, his breath on her neck, his scent enveloping her. He made her feel safe, protected. He made her feel so many things, just like before.

"It's all over," he soothed. "I'm here. You're okay."

A shockwave blasted through her when he spoke and reassured her with exactly what she needed to hear, held her close with exactly the embrace she needed to feel. That's how she came to understand that she wouldn't have to say anything; he knew already. Booth was the heart expert and he would always know. He had come when she'd had no hope. Somehow, he'd known she needed him and he'd found her and he was _there_.

_Do you believe in fate?_

It was impossible. Nothing mystical, nothing so vague as fate or divine intervention existed, and yet, how had it happened…? Brennan struggled to understand her sudden rescue, this reversal of the inevitable.

"How?" It was only the first of many questions, but it encompassed everything. She pulled back, ever curious and just a little frightened at the implications. "How did you get out of the hospital?" _How did you find me? How did you know? How can you care this much about me?_

He teased her with one of his charm smiles. "Hodgins gave me a drive." Then he winced, looking at her bruised face and feeling at the same time the pain of his own injuries. "Maybe we can go back together."

_Later_, Brennan thought. For now she laid her head back down on Booth's shoulder and held him in the most inappropriate, not-like-a-partner way she could manage. She had been given the second chance—**_he_** had given her that second chance. His arms were strong and gentle, safe. Booth was there, and that meant she wasn't alone.

~Q~

He flew all the way to New Orleans, defended her against a looming murder charge, stole her earring when it turned up at a crime scene as evidence that implicated her, and gave it back to her later.

"Does that mean something?" Angela asked, not knowing what story was behind the returned item.

Brennan held the earring aloft in disbelief, too stunned to explain. "Yeah, it does," she finally whispered.

He was always going to protect her.

~Q~

When her mother's body was identified, he offered her companionship and comfort.

"I saw your lights were on." It was after midnight and he stood on her doorstep with Chinese take-out.

"You saw the lights from the road," she repeated, knowing it was a falsehood.

"That is correct," he grinned, knowing she was skeptical and knowing also that it didn't matter.

Then he helped mend the remnants of her family by teaching her how to forgive: first Russ, then her father when he unexpectedly turned up alive.

~Q~

He was her best friend.

He gave her advice (that she was sure she didn't want) about former foster kids bearing 'the weight of the world' on their shoulders and trying to control everything. With his advice whispering in her ear, she made peace with Camille Saroyan—thereby saving both her job and the entire Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Forensics unit—that very night.

~Q~

He gave her 'guy hugs.'

He dried her tears.

He took her to lunch. He took her to dinner. He took her bowling. He invited her to go with him and Parker to baseball games and movies and afternoons at the museums on the Mall, or to the National Zoo.

He made her laugh.

He explained the difference between crappy sex and making love.

He made her fall in love with him.

He made her believe in love.

~Q~

She didn't believe in fate, but he did.

Nothing came between them for very long. Not his arrest of her father for murder, nor his testimony against Max Brennan on the witness stand. Not the Gravedigger's efforts to kill both of them, separately. Not being shot by a stalker as he defended Brennan's life with his own, nor his faked death afterward that went on for two weeks. Not his tumor, nor the coma that followed.

Not his ill-advised request that they 'gamble' on the one relationship Temperance Brennan had come to rely upon above all others. Not her panicked 'no.' Not his 'moving on.' Not his reenlistment that sent him back to Afghanistan, nor her desperate escape to the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, nor the resulting separation for seven months.

Not his relationship and near-engagement to Hannah Burley, (though that came closest to actually breaking them), because Brennan held on as a friend despite her own crushed heart. Not his anger when Hannah wasn't the marrying kind, because Brennan was still there to help him find his footing.

Not Jacob Broadsky.

Not their own obstinate selves and all the opportunities they'd let pass by.

He told her once that everything happens eventually, and eventually everything happened as it was meant to. He called that fate.

She called it the logical progression of their relationship.

They both called it making love the night Christine was conceived.

~Q~

Author's Note: Are you still there? Not too confused? We are done with time traveling for now, hope you enjoyed the ride. :D

Thank you to everyone who managed to get all the way to the bottom of this emotionally charged chapter. Hopefully it was worth the time you spent.

If you don't mind, I'd really love to hear what you think. Reviews help me know if I'm telling the story I think I am, or if you're hearing something different.

Chapter 6 returns to the present. However, chapter 7 is coming soon and we'll be going back in time once again.


	6. Intellectuals Never Get Married

Disclaimer: I have some old chicken bones on the counter resting in vinegar as part of an experiment on the effects of removing minerals from bones. I claim full ownership of those bones. Those bones are mine, even though they've lost so much calcium and are so bendy and wiggly it's questionable if they still can be called bones. I do not own any other kind of Bones, especially not the TV show.

Author's note: This chapter was possibly one of the most difficult pieces I've ever written. Normally I don't write in a straight line from start to finish, and a bridging chapter like this I would be writing _after_ I finished most of the story! Obviously, if I'm publishing a chapter every week, I have to get them finished in order. So before I could complete this chapter, I had to work on three other chapters at the same time, plus plotting out two more. (Oh, and I'm in the middle of the quarter which means mid-terms every week in one class or another. Phew! Let's talk about multi-tasking!)

Many heart-felt thanks go again to **DorothyOz**. Without her tenacious challenges to my thought processes, I would not have taken the direction I'm setting out upon now. We are having quite the spirited debate about motive and blame behind the scenes. :D

~Q~

**Chapter Six**

_An Intellectually Rigorous Person Would Never Get Married!_

When Booth walked into her office, Brennan looked up and felt cautious relief when it seemed that time and space had restored his usual good humor. He was smiling faintly, his shoulders relaxed. "You ready?"

"Yes." She stood, gathering her jacket and messenger bag. "Are we getting lunch first?"

Booth's ghostly smile looked a bit embarrassed before it tiptoed off his face. "I already ate. Sweets and I got something out of the vending machines."

"Oh."

A metaphorical vise clenched tightly against her entire thoracic cage, compressing her ribs until she was sure she could feel the impending hinge fractures. Her stomach revolted at this unwelcome news as well, wondering how it was going to adapt to his unexpected abandonment. She hadn't been able to eat breakfast and now she was skipping lunch.

"Are you hungry?" he asked perfunctorily.

"No." She shook her head and walked past him wearing neutrality like a Kevlar vest. "I figured you would be."

In the past Brennan had comfortably gone up to two days without eating. She knew that hunger pangs came in waves, but once the wave passed it might be a few hours before the next one. Hunger pangs, labor contractions, grief for things lost along the way, they all came in waves.

She headed straight for the parking lot and didn't look back.

Booth followed silently, but as they reached the car, he unlocked her door and opened it for her. She didn't need it opened, of course, but it was something he had always done, an old-fashioned chivalry she knew had been drilled into him by his grandfather. The courtly gesture did more to reassure her than even his 'I love you' over the telephone had half an hour ago.

"Thank you," she offered quietly, glancing up at him at last.

He wasn't really looking at her until she spoke. But when she did the small smile he'd greeted her with a moment ago in her office returned and she breathed a sigh of relief. Just a skipped lunch, she scolded herself. He hadn't eaten much for breakfast so of course he'd gotten hungry. There was no greater meaning to read into it.

"Did you or Cam get any closer to cause of death yet?" he asked as she slid into her seat.

"He was stabbed in the sixth cervical vertebrae with something made of aluminum. Hodgins and Angela are working out a way to remove it and hopefully figure out what it was. There's also evidence of a peri-mortem fall."

"Like he was hit and then fell?"

"No, the bones show damage from a severe impact, so likely it was several stories. I have Finn calculating the height."

"All right. I've got Bartlett's wife coming in. Sweets did the notification." Booth shut the door carefully on her with that, leaving her in silence.

~Q~

"Richard was a white shoe divorce lawyer."

Brennan frowned blankly, looking to Booth and wondering if there had been a mix-up about the victim's clothing. "I … believe the victim's shoes were oxblood."

Booth heaved a long-suffering sigh and scowled at her. "What she means is that her husband was a lawyer for rich people." Then almost scathingly he added, "No shoes."

She watched his face closely while he turned back to Bartlett's wife, checking to see if this was a 'good-cop-bad-cop' exchange. He smiled into Mrs. Bartlett's wide, puzzled eyes, shook his head slightly, and plunged back into the interview. With that, Brennan wasn't sure what to think.

Their victim had clearly followed the typical pattern of a successful and powerful male, which would include the flaunting of his status via the acquisition of large homes, expensive cars and other objects, and a trophy wife. The much younger, physically attractive woman he'd chosen had most certainly married 'up' and presented herself as cool and composed. She casually admitted money was a motive, but then pointed out her husband had made plenty of blood-thirsty enemies when he'd bulldozed through unhappy alliances and invariably left one side gaping and bereft.

"Where you or I would see an unhappy couple, Richard would see an ATM."

His collateral damage was high, his fees even higher, such that even the winning side ended up in poverty. The people he had angered included not just ex-spouses but clients, offspring, other attorneys and even the occasional judge. According to Mrs. Bartlett, her husband's assistant could give them his client files and they would see for themselves just how extensive his enemy list was.

Brennan listened to all of this in relative silence, musing that the proverbial 'war between the sexes' could be every bit as costly and bloody on a small scale as an actual war between nations over valuable assets and resources. Humans were never closer to their animal ancestry than when defending territory they considered theirs. The fact that such vicious behavior could be aroused when facing off against someone they had once professed to love left a cold dread in her heart.

~Q~

The building where Richard Bartlett's office was ensconced rose up to the highest height allowed in DC, a glittering glass and stone edifice that recreated the Romanesque renaissance architecture from the late Nineteenth Century. The elevators rode silently on high-tech cables, yet the interior of the cars was an elegantly old-fashioned fusion of wood and brass rather than the more typically modern brushed nickel. Brennan liked it; Booth thought he was entering heaven.

His antique-loving side enthused over the way the building had brought an earlier era back to life while still retaining all the comforts of modernity. As they exited the elevator onto the top floor, he paused to take in the National Monuments peeping out along the sweeping view of the National Mall afforded by their location and height. "Wow, must be nice working in the penthouse. I mean, come on. Look at that view!"

Brennan smiled at his exuberance, hoping at last that they were back on solid ground. This was more like them, this peaceful enjoyment of a moment together. The interview with Bartlett's wife had gone well enough to lead them here and Booth was assuredly in a better mood now than he'd been a few hours previously.

Daring to relax and stop looking for eggshells, she couldn't help making an observation that might explain a man like Richard Bartlett seeking such a lofty space for his business office. "Interesting anthropological fact: Men of power have always sought higher ground. To that end, the floor a man works on could be seen as a literal representation of where he fits in the hierarchical ladder."

Booth's smile wilted. "I work on the fourth floor."

She shrugged. "And despite that, I am very proud of you." Booth couldn't help where his office was located—that was a decision made by bureaucrats at the FBI who had decided their Major Crimes Unit should be located on the fourth floor. Much of his time was spent out in the field, anyway, or in the interrogation room. In Booth's job, the floor he worked on was irrelevant. Yet if it were up to him, she knew he would have sought a location similar to this one: snipers always claimed the highest ground.

Before she could tell him this, a foreman approached wearing consternation and protective gear. "Uh, this is a hard-hat area, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Booth had his credentials at the ready. "FBI. I need a hard hat."

"And directions to Margot Sandoval's office," Brennan added.

But then she glanced at Booth in reproach, feeling keenly the word he'd used. '**_I_** need a hat.' Since he hadn't said '_we_ need hats,' she felt strangely forgotten at having to ask for one on her own even though she was standing right next to him. Concealing the turmoil that was proving to be unrelenting where Booth was concerned, Brennan added her own request with forced cheer. "And, I need a hard hat, too."

"This is going to slow me down," the Foreman muttered in annoyance.

Booth clearly didn't care. Instead of the usual conciliatory sympathy he typically wielded to soothe disgruntled witnesses, he dismissed the inconvenience with flippant contempt. "That's a shame."

Still eyeing Booth cautiously, she noted his lapse in etiquette and worried again that he wasn't behaving typically. He was just so ... different. Every moment she spent in his company today was more unsettling than any she could recall since the beginning of their partnership. Nothing he did or said made sense in the context of the Booth she had come to know and love so deeply over their shared seven years. This Booth's moods were unpredictable. It was like the kind-hearted partner she'd always counted upon had departed and left her in the company of the mercurial, calculating gambler she'd first met instead.

Booth's missing manners were also noted by the foreman, who reacted with frustration. "What. A little mercy, okay? I'm doing a renovation for a bunch of lawyers, okay? Who threaten to sue me every day." Noting she was the more sympathetic of the two, he glanced towards Brennan pointedly as he briefly removed his hat. He gestured toward his hairless head. "I'm going bald from the stress."

Briefly she considered correcting the man's misunderstanding of the biological causes of male baldness, but before she could launch an impromptu lesson on genetics and dermal physiology, Booth spoke.

"Well, you know why I have good hair?" His impatience had receded a bit when he saw the foreman wasn't fond of the lawyers he worked for, so Booth offered a bit of free advice. "It's because I don't let lawyers stress me out."

"That's true," Brennan agreed brightly, trying to bolster the moment as much as she could. Booth never let the prosecutors bother him, not even Caroline Julian, the terror of the tenth floor. Of course, she added mentally, it also helped that Booth clearly had not inherited any of the seven possible genes responsible for male pattern baldness. Without a doubt, good genetics provided a better explanation for his thick head of hair then simply not allowing lawyers to annoy him.

The foreman glanced between the two, seeming to sense suddenly an opportunity to ruin someone else's day. A visit from the FBI would not likely be welcomed by any of the high-rollers on this floor. "Okay, fine. Who do you need to see again?"

"Richard Bartlett," Booth replied.

The foreman's face fell. "Oh. You'll lose a few hairs after you meet Bartlett. Trust me." Then he smirked because Richard Bartlett might end up losing a few hairs as well. A visit from the FBI … never a good thing. Whistling, the foreman went to grab two hard hats and hoped the FBI gave Bartlett hell.

As they followed behind the contractor a few minutes later, Booth glanced over at Brennan. Just that fast his mood had improved even further. He was happier, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. "I got a great idea for this weekend."

She turned toward him hopefully, reassured to hear that he had plans he wanted to share with her. "What?"

Excitedly, Booth proposed, "Let's take Christine to the carousel."

She winced sharply, recalling just how poorly that had gone over when her dad had suggested it. "Oh, no, that is not a good idea."

"How do you know?" His step faltered, bewildered by her abrupt rejection of the plan.

"I took her to one in Woolrich, Pennsylvania and she did _not_ like it." There had been hysterical tears, the first time she had ever heard Christine's 'frightened' cry. The loud, tinkling music, flashing lights, and colorful movement of the plunging horses had overwhelmed Christine to such a degree that the only remedy was immediate retreat. It had taken her over ten minutes to calm her daughter.

Booth sounded positively deflated. "Well, maybe because I wasn't there."

"Well, why would _that_ make any difference?" she asked blankly. The bright lights, noise and frenetic activity had clearly over-stimulated Christine's immature nervous system; Brennan couldn't imagine how Booth's presence would have been able to mitigate a physiological stimulus that had provoked an emotional response because of her extreme discomfort. It was just the way of babies to be afraid of such things. In a few months, she would probably love the carousel as much as Parker did.

Something indistinct rippled over Booth's face. He seemed to contract into a tight ball of energy, his steps lengthening and his stride speeding up incrementally. More uneasiness tore through the fragile sense of stasis that had carried them through the last hour. Brennan reached out, taking Booth's arm and pulling him gently to a stop.

Angela had told her long ago that touching someone could help forge a connection. She knew Booth was a tactile person, that he craved touching and being touched. Something seemed so out of balance that she hoped that a simple touch would restore them—maybe she even prayed, if the hopeful wish that an atheist could send up might be considered analoguous to a prayer. And now that she thought about it, they hadn't touched each other at all the entire day, not since their aborted kiss at breakfast. It was just one more subtle signal from the universe that something had gone astray.

"Is everything all right?" Her eyes searched his, pleading silently for him to tell her what was wrong with them.

He stopped and looked at her for a long moment, as if weighing his options. Finally he shrugged and glanced away. "Yeah. It's just, I don't like being in a divorce lawyer's office. That's all."

_Nothing's wrong, I'm just imagining it._ Brennan tried to convince herself that they were fine. He would tell her if he was upset. He always told her. _It's just me, there's something…. No, it's nothing._ With a slight shake of her head, she forced herself to focus on what Booth had said, the thing that was bothering him. He didn't like being in a divorce lawyer's office, a fact that she found quite puzzling. Was that all it was?

Curious, she tipped her head to the side. "Why?"

"Because," he answered gruffly. "It reminds me that things fall apart."

Entropy. Things fall apart, the universe is slowly unraveling itself as it expands. Everything changes. She had warned him of this once long ago, while they held hands and ice skated all night long. Booth had laughed and promised her nothing would ever change between them. Booth had also told her that fundamentally, people don't change. Like his belief in fate, his faith in God, this was another of Booth's Constants that always gave her hope. Even if she couldn't believe in those things, he did and his faith reassured her. He shifted his bleak gaze back to her and Brennan suddenly felt genuine fear.

They were falling apart.

For one terrifying moment, she felt herself free-falling into an abyss, the inescapable singularity of despair. Could entropy tear them apart as easily as it was destined to strip apart the very fabric of the universe?

No. No, she wouldn't let the fear rule her. It was Booth and he was the exception, her only exception that proved the rule. Booth believed people didn't change and had promised her _they_ wouldn't change. He never changed, not where it mattered, and he kept his promises. This was just his Catholic sensibilities nagging him, she decided after a moment. Brennan forced a smile and tried to remind them both that there was nothing for them to fear about being in a divorce lawyer's office.

"Well, it's a good thing we're not married, right?" Clearly, a divorce lawyer was useless to them and no threat to their unity—Booth had promised that nothing would separate them. They didn't even need that kind of legal assistance because there could be no divorce where there was no marriage to dissolve.

Another unquantifiable expression passed over him, darkening his eyes. "You are not a very reassuring person, Bones."

He spun and stalked over to the closed door that hid Ms. Sandoval's office.

_I was trying to be,_ she mourned fretfully. By his reaction she knew that she had just made things worse again. He wanted reassurance of something and she'd missed the chance to give him what he needed. She ran her memory over the last several minutes, trying to piece it together. If only she could reconstruct human interactions as easily as she could a skeleton, perhaps she could find the clue to what Booth needed reassurance about. She would do it in a heartbeat if she just _knew_.

So many times over the years, Brennan had reassured Booth just as he had done so for her.

_"I would only work with the best."  
"You are a good father."  
"You're made of very good stuff."  
"You are not your father, Booth."  
"I'm standing right beside you, like I always have. Like I always will."_

But then there was a three month span when she did not stand beside him, nor anywhere near. Three months when she left and Booth had to stand alone. He said he understood, he said he forgave her. She felt another surge of gastric acid try to claw its way up her esophagus. What if he hadn't actually forgiven her…?

He knocked harshly on the door. "FBI, Ms. Sandoval. Open up!"

Brennan followed him to the door, standing beside him again indecisively. They were working, which meant it wasn't an auspicious time to begin a complicated personal conversation. She met his gaze hesitantly and saw that he had reverted back to something resembling the driven FBI agent who had first dragged her out of the lab. But he was still Booth, he was still Constant, like the speed of light or the steady and immutable force of gravitation.

He would tell her if there was something wrong. He would eventually tell her, she finally reassured herself. She just had to give him some time and maybe they could talk about it tonight. Brennan hastily covered her confusion in order to focus on work again. She leaned in towards the door suddenly because she'd heard a whirring noise. "I hear something."

Booth snapped at her impatiently. "Of course you hear something. 'Cause someone's inside, Bones. It's Ms. Sandoval!"

She flinched at his harsh tone but kept her ear to the door.

The whirring continued, paused, then resumed. Then paused. Booth had knocked again.

Realizing suddenly what she was hearing, Brennan glanced back to her partner and instructed urgently, "Knock it down!"

She had recognized that what she was hearing was the sound of documents being shredded. They needed to get inside that office quickly in order to save the evidence.

Instead of crashing through the door as she'd urged, he resumed knocking but more furiously this time, and the anger in his voice became quite evident. "FBI! Please open up the door."

A moment later, it did fall open to his command. Ms. Sandoval poked her blonde head around the edge and greeted them brightly. "Hi! Sorry to keep you waiting, but we're closed. If you need a referral for another divorce attorney—"

"No." Brennan smiled a little at the confusion and at the notion that she would ever want to separate from Booth. No matter how confusing things were at the moment, the thought of not being with him simply could not, would not, be entertained. "We're not here for a divorce."

"We're not married," Booth confirmed coldly. "FBI."

Brennan felt the metaphorical vise return to clutch at her. The way he said it sounded bitter. Suddenly not being married sounded frightening, but she wasn't quite sure why. Timing is everything the saying goes … Brennan's timing being off as usual, she wondered a few minutes too late if not being married might have sounded frightening to Booth as well.

Once inside Mr. Bartlett's office, they learned his perky assistant had indeed been shredding documents. A glance into the display case of expensive fountain pens revealed one missing, causing Brennan to decide it was worth checking to see if the nibs were made of aluminum. A moment later, Brennan found enough traces of blood smeared all over the desk to suggest that Bartlett had been assaulted there. That was all Booth needed to order up a warrant and shut down the office as a crime scene. And the conversation she now knew had to take place was put on hold for a few hours longer.

~Q~

Booth had returned to the Hoover building to go over Bartlett's client files with Sweets, leaving Brennan adrift while the anthropological significance of marriage dangled dangerously in her mind.

Marriage meant exchanges of property, often chaining a woman to her husband and stripping her of her legal identity. It wasn't very long ago when a married woman was considered not to exist as her own person: no legal status, no right to own property, sue for divorce or even to travel without her husband's express permission. In essence, the wife became the husband's property. Spousal rape was deemed physically impossible, since the legal marriage bestowed upon the husband exclusive and complete sexual access to his wife's body, whether she was so inclined or not.

Her lips pressed together with consternation. Even accepting the fact that modern American marriages weren't so restrictive of a woman's rights, Brennan felt that tying oneself to a single other person while under the influence of pair-bonding hormones was foolhardy. Habituation was a well documented phenomena that guaranteed the effects of those particular hormones eventually weakened and waned. The partners in a marriage undertaken in such circumstances, consequently, would eventually find themselves trapped in a relationship that was no longer pleasurable and thus made all the more precarious because it had never been profitable. Absent the mitigating effects of chemical euphoria, the couple would have no other reason to remain together; separation was inevitable.

The only rationale for marriage that Brennan could accept was to bypass hormonal influences, opting instead for a well-reasoned agreement between two people to work together for common goals such as child-rearing or economic advancement, thus undertaking the marriage contract for the legal and economic benefits it bestowed. Marriage for the right reasons and entered into with proper consideration would be both sensible and profitable. She had said as much to her cousin, Margaret, the year she had hosted Christmas dinner.

All through her adult life, Brennan had believed that people should be free to come and go as they pleased. Since all relationships were transitory and undertaken for the benefits they could provide, binding contracts such as marriage stifled freedom and were ultimately harmful in most cases. That is what Michael Stires had taught her.

Until today, it had never occurred to her that putting a legal binding in place that could prevent people from freely leaving might also be reassuring as well as profitable. That revelation stayed in her mind and wouldn't let go even when she delivered the subpoenaed wastebasket full of shredded documents to Angela. Consequently, Brennan's mind was only halfway present for the explanation of what needed to be done: reconstructing the shreds.

Angela dipped her hand into the confetti, aghast at the task ahead of her. She sputtered out the problem as she saw it, which was the near impossibility of reassembling who knew how many documents that had been consumed by a particle shredder.

Brennan nodded absently. "So, it seems that you have a handle on it." She turned to leave.

"Hey," Angela called out. "You know, you haven't told me how it's going."

"Well, there are few suspects. We don't have any definitive evidence."

Angela sent her an impatient glare. Long ago she had guessed that Brennan occasionally pretended ignorance when an uncomfortable topic came up, and once confronted Brennan had not quite succeeded in denying it. Angela's sudden irritation suggested an accusation that Brennan was doing that now, and with that look from her friend, she knew she would not be allowed this particular moment of intentional obtuseness. Angela had known Brennan for over eight years now, and not once since the beginning had she ever fallen for the usual tricks that kept everyone else out of her personal life.

That was the only way Angela Montenegro had managed to become Brennan's best friend: by refusing to let things slide, refusing to let Brennan hide, refusing to take 'I don't know what that means' as a satisfactory reply. If Brennan truly did not know, Angela would happily inform her; if Brennan was bluffing, Angela invariably called her on it.

Even when she encountered fierce resistance (which she usually did), Angela hovered and nudged until Brennan either gave in (rarely) or had worked it out on her own (after duly considering Angela's unsolicited advice, of course). As much as she resented having her personal life pried into, Brennan knew Angela's nosy concern had helped her dozens of times in the past and that was the essential reason she tolerated the continued interference, whereas with anyone else she would have never permitted it to begin with.

"You and Booth," Angela clarified unnecessarily.

Brennan felt a chill run through her. She forced herself to meet Angela's inquiring gaze, but didn't really know what she was supposed to say. In the last hour, she'd come to the stark realization that it might not be going well and she was at a loss to understand what to do about it. She didn't have the knowledge or the experience to succeed. This must be what it felt like to fail at the final exam, she decided, unable to shake the disquisitive sensation that while a fugitive she had missed an entire quarter of lectures and had returned only to find that the book wasn't enough and she had no idea what the rest of the class had learned while she was gone.

The most important test of her life, and she was failing it.

"You two should be locked in a bedroom somewhere, making up for lost time, and telling me everything about it."

Locked in a bedroom somewhere … having sex? She felt another chill, stronger. They weren't having sex, not since the first couple of days together. They weren't even touching each other. Yet she couldn't talk to Angela about her sex life because Booth had insisted that must remain private. What went on between them, especially their intimate moments, was theirs alone. Her hands fisted at her sides, the only way she could think of to combat the tension building in her without giving it away.

Angela noticed anyway, of course. "What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Okaay…." Angela pinned Brennan with a dissecting stare, not intending to be dissuaded. "Hodgins said that you seemed a little tense with each other at the crime scene."

Hodgins had noticed, of course. And Cam. And now Angela. Brennan felt raw and exposed, knowing her personal issues were spilling into the lab and infecting everyone around her. Her failure was public knowledge and fodder for gossip. Any other relationship problems she had experienced had always gone unmentioned and thus stayed strictly separated from her work; but this time, she worked with Booth. The tension building between them was evident to everyone they worked with, affording neither of them any respite or means of distraction.

She didn't want to talk about this now, didn't want to have to face such a humiliating situation in the place that had always been a refuge, in front of people whose opinion of her mattered. _Never let them see you cry._

Brennan forced out a light, brittle laugh, as if that morning's scene was not a concern. "We're fine, given the time spent apart. There are many cultures, specifically Native American tribes from Montana—"

Angela immediately interrupted her. "Honey, I don't wanna hear about any anthropological crap."

That was the problem with having a best friend as sharply intuitive as Angela, Brennan realized with a sinking disappointment. Angela knew her too well, knew when she was hiding and knew just how to push through the smokescreen. Brennan could fool Booth far more often than Angela, and that was saying something considering how well he knew her.

Angela softened then, gentle and concerned. "I want to know how my best friend is doing."

"I don't understand what you want me to say," Brennan answered vaguely, but the slight catch in her voice gave her away. She didn't know how she was doing, other than failure. She didn't know how he was doing, or what was happening between them. Something was definitely wrong, but she still didn't know what. The only thing she knew with any certainty was what she wanted to be true, and that is what she told Angela.

"I was gone, and now I'm back. Booth and I are living in the same house again, raising our daughter, and solving another murder." Life would go back to normal. Everything would be fine, they were going to be fine. They had to be.

Even though neither of them had voiced the possibility of it being otherwise, Brennan suddenly added, "I'm still the same person I always was." _I'm Temperance Brennan and I will not fail at this or any other test._

Angela kept her quiet and knowing gaze on her friend. "You worked in a fast food place. And you were a single mother. You didn't even know if you were going to _see_ Booth again. That changes a person!"

Brennan shook her head, suddenly frustrated. People acted as if she'd never been poor before. As if she'd never been alone before. What did they think, that she was a fairy tale princess raised in a palace and suddenly reduced to begging in the streets with no prior experience? She wasn't the princess turned into a goose girl, it was the reverse. She was the goose girl pretending to be a princess, but always knowing her peasantry was only a breath away from discovery.

She had _not_ changed; what she had done was find the old Tempe and had lived that life again. It was as easy as riding a bicycle: get back on and start pedaling. As easy as putting on an old coat. She had stepped into the past and lived like the poor, struggling college student Tempe Brennan, working in libraries, janitorial jobs or restaurants, scraping for pennies and compiling her research on Pelant during coffee breaks. She had lived _that_ life for far more years than she had been either an acclaimed scientist or a wealthy author.

She returned her friend's gaze with a trace of anger. No one knew what she had gone through all those years ago. No one knew how much a part of her it still was, how much it would always be. Not even Angela knew the whole person Brennan really was under her calm, rational surface. That old Tempe never really went away, and Brennan knew that old Tempe could herd geese and live on the streets with no effort at all. "And now that I'm home, I've changed back."

The coat was off. Tempe was back in the closet, ready to be worn again at a moment's notice. Brennan knew that people don't change, only their clothing did.

"Okay." Angela agreed, giving up. "Okay. Listen, just know that if you wake up in the middle of the night screaming, that you can call me. And we can … we can talk it out."

It was an olive branch, an offer of friendship that touched her deeply. "I don't know what that means but, thank you."

She glanced down at the shredded paper and turned away again. "I should let you work. You've a lot to do."

"Yeah," Angela sighed.

~Q~

Without knowing why or how, Brennan ended up back in the Ookie room, standing still among flowers and insects, mineral and soil samples. Since Zack had made the terrible choice that caused him to leave the lab on a gurney, this space had become Jack Hodgins' playground.

"Hey Dr. B, what brings you here?"

"I … " She didn't know and had to invent a reason, her mind casting out for any possible task she could ask Hodgins to do. The alternative was to confess that she was so distracted she didn't know how she'd gotten here. Being distracted to that extent was unacceptable, right along with failing and crying. Gratefully, she remembered that there was something she'd discovered earlier. "Earlier today I noted some particulates embedded in Bartlett's skull. I came to ask you if you could run them through the gas chromatograph and the mass spec. I believe they are organic."

"Sure, bring them over," he agreed easily.

Then, as Angela had, and Cam, his deeply blue eyes held her gaze for too long and with too much concern. "Did you need anything else?"

Unlike the others, Hodgins knew not to ask directly.

A lump inflated rapidly in her throat. Not for the first time, she found that Hodgins was similar enough in temperament that she found herself confessing things to him. Angela would pry, and force her out. Jack never did, and yet there were times when Brennan knew Jack Hodgins was the only person in her acquaintance who might view a problem from the same rational perspective she did. It was during moments like these that she knew Jack's input was invaluable.

"Why did you get married?" she finally asked in a rush, before she could change her mind.

If he was surprised, he hid it well. Instead, he smiled fondly. "Well, when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, marriage is a way to make sure that it happens."

Brennan pondered that for a minute, musing that it sounded like a romantic notion that Booth might offer by way of explanation. She didn't understand it, however. If you want to be with someone, then you stay with them. It's simple. So why bring legally binding documents into it? "But why marriage?" she persisted. "Isn't it enough to just tell them you want to be with them?"

Recalling just how hard he'd worked to get Angela to agree to marriage, Hodgins met her worried gaze with confidence. "Marriage is about trust, and commitment. Proposing marriage is how you know the other person wants to be with you just as much as you want to be with them. It's like making a declaration to each other, but also to the whole world. It makes it real."

"It's not rational," she pointed out.

"Love isn't rational," he countered. "But marriage can be a very rational way to keep someone you love in your life."

Supposing that made some sense, Brennan resolved to think it over. Her body remained still while her mind wrestled with an even bigger question. Still weighing her options, she pinched her lips together as if that would keep the questions in because the need to keep her personal problems private overrode just about everything else.

Hodgins dropped his gaze and bustled around with a slide he was preparing. If she was going to say something else, she would. If not, she'd go. They had that sort of understanding with each other.

It was that curiously confident indifference that finally pulled the question out of her. Everyone in the lab knew she and Booth weren't working smoothly together today. Hodgins hadn't asked, and somehow that reassured her that he could give her the best advice because he wasn't as invested in the outcome as Angela was. "When you and Angela are … having difficulty with each other, how do you resolve it?" _So that it doesn't affect your work_, was her silent addendum.

He paused to give it a moment of thought. "Well, if we're disagreeing about something we have to talk it out and find a compromise."

"What if…." She hesitated, struggling to put her unease into words. "What if you're not sure what the problem is."

"Well, then you need to ask."

"I did," she said softly, her stricken face betraying how confused she felt.

Hodgins shifted his weight awkwardly, knowing without either of them saying it that Booth wasn't talking. "Whatever it is, you have to get it out into the open. Don't let it fester."

"How do I do that," she whispered brokenly. She didn't know. After an all-too-brief moment of hope, she was back to failing the test.

With a sympathetic shrug, he suggested the most obvious answer. "Make him tell you."

~Q~

Author's Note: Don't believe me that Booth said people don't change…? That's what he told Hodgins in Two Bodies in the Lab. They were talking about whether a sadistic killer would change his MO to attack Brennan. Booth said, "People don't change. We like to think that they do, but they don't."

We're starting to weave together the many threads of Brennan's past and fears and at last a picture is starting to emerge. What do you suppose it will reveal? What is she truly afraid of...?


	7. I've Been Alone All My Life

Disclaimer? I almost forgot to do that. We all know Fox won't forget, though. No-sir-ee. So just to make those execs. at Fox relax, don't worry guys. I know these characters and plot lines all belong to you. Consider Bones properly disclaimed. Okay? Okay.

Author's Note: Writing this story has been very challenging, both in finding a balance between angst and hope, and in finding the exact moments to prepare us for what's ahead. Add in a tight publishing schedule, midterms(!), more midterms(!), and it's maybe no surprise that I somehow ended up writing too much once again. Because where there's a ton of homework, mega-exams to study for and challenging labs to complete ... what better way to stay on top of all that is there than to ... write Bones fanfiction.

That is why this ended up being another monster chapter that needs to be cut into two chapters, both of which will be set in the past. And therefore you, lucky readers, get two updates this weekend! :D

Our next time-travel trip to the past is on schedule to depart ... now!

~Q~

**Chapter Seven**

_"I've Been Alone All of My Life."_

The song "Brand New Day" was playing in the background and the evening crowd was picking up at the Founding Fathers. Booth had finished processing the arrest and was now filling Brennan in on what was happening next.

"So, are the rest of the girls still renting a house together?" Brennan asked him, sounding amazed.

They were seated together at the bar, sharing their traditional 'after-case' drinks. Brennan lifted her nearly full glass of Merlot and sipped cautiously, as she waited for Booth to finish debriefing her. It had been a very strange and tragic case, finding the killer of a pregnant teenage girl and discovering no less than eight other girls had also been impregnanted at the same time, all by choice, and most by the same unpopular boy.

"Right," Booth confirmed. He sighed. "You know what I don't get? How is it that eight beautiful girls could give up their whole lives during high school?"

Brennan shrugged. "It's a rational decision."

"On what planet?" he retorted.

"Earth." It was so obvious, her tone proclaimed.

When he chortled dismissively, she defended her assessment with irritation. She believed in reason. While what those high school girls had done was premature given their ages, the way in which they acted was extraordinarily rational and pragmatic; as such, Brennan understood it perfectly even if she didn't approve of teen pregnancy. "Given the current environment, the paradigm with which a group of girls band together to raise their offspring has merit."

"Without the fathers," Booth supplied, clearly scandalized.

"Anthropologically speaking, those girls have grown up in a culture that reinforces the sad truism that women cannot count on men."

Booth responded fiercely. "Do not say _'men'_ like that. Men do not like a world without responsibility."

She scoffed, cynicism and a long-burning anger combining to light up her words. "That boy whom those young girls chose as their sperm donor, he seemed more than happy with the arrangement."

And so had just about every man Brennan had ever met. They would happily lap up sex without obligations, physical release without emotion. That was all she had ever known, right up until a man named Seeley Booth asked her about fate, kissed her senseless and then drew a line.

There was a reason she didn't believe in men or fate.

Yet here came fate again, in the guise of that same man who was now her partner, the man who was suddenly shifting, reacting to her and to what she knew.

"Booth?" She was both curious and concerned.

"You're right," he agreed tersely.

"I know," she said. But a moment later realized being right might actually be … wrong. Booth was standing, digging in his pockets for cash that he threw on the bar to cover his tab and then a cell phone. He dialed a number he'd scribbled onto the back of one of his business cards. "Who are you calling?" she wondered, and worried that she'd offended him so much he was leaving.

"Clinton," Booth replied into the phone, answering Brennan and the person he was calling simultaneously. "Listen, it's Agent Booth. I need to talk to you."

"The kid?" Brennan considered that in light of what they'd just been discussing. Suddenly, she thought she understood.

"Meet me at the Royal Diner on Tenth in twenty minutes, okay? I'm buying, just get yourself there. Bye."

He snapped the phone shut, then met her quizzical gaze. "Listen, I know you wanna come along an' all…."

But she waved him off, knowing exactly what Booth intended. "No, I get it. Go on. It's a guy-to-guy thing."

"Thanks." He snagged a pretzel and then his coat. As he was turning he paused suddenly, perhaps realizing that she'd just surprised him. "Wait, what do you think I'm going to tell Clinton?"

Brennan studied Booth with the same careful attention to minutia she always employed, cataloging his expression and every word he spoke. He had no idea how carefully she observed him, but the fact was that she did, always. And as a result, she was confident of her answer. "You're going to talk to him about responsibility, and being someone those girls can count on."

What she'd just said about women being unable to count on men still lingered between them, a challenge begging a reply, and his expression changed as he looked back at her. He stepped towards her, his gaze intensifying on her like a magnifying lens. Brennan was glad she'd ingested enough Merlot to calm her pulse and cover the quaking she felt whenever Booth got so close.

His voice rumbled low and smooth around her. "I'm not like any man you've ever met, Bones."

"I know," she whispered, her throat abruptly parched.

Closer still, so near that his warmth brushed over her and all the air rushed out of her lungs to join his. So near she could feel his breath on her lips, smelling faintly of Mack and Jack's Amber Ale. His eyes held hers in thrall. "And I'm not like your father. I would never abandon my child."

Brennan gasped faintly, overwhelmed by the words and warmth and the force of his affection. _I would never leave you_, seemed to whisper between them, unspoken but understood. He knew.

He always just knew what she was really saying.

That's why she believed in him, and him alone. She had exempted Booth from the men-you-can't-count-on group long ago.

Booth leaned in further, his scent enveloping her and his warm lips making tender contact with her forehead. He found her hand lying boneless in her lap and squeezed it gently. When he pulled away she didn't know if she wanted to kiss him or start crying.

Her senses were reeling and it would be easy to blame the wine. But she knew better. Booth tossed his jacket on and walked away, leaving her clutching at her barstool while the earth spun and she wondered if he knew he could do that to her. She wondered why he was the only one who could do that to her.

When she had finished the wine, Brennan left Founding Fathers and walked back toward Tenth. She paused across the street from the Diner, seeing her partner and the teenager, Clinton, framed in the window. Whatever Booth was telling him, the boy was looking down and Booth was leaning into him as well with that same earnest warmth that had intoxicated her only thirty minutes ago.

Booth had a way with people: he could smile or flirt, comfort or cudgel anyone. Brennan always felt special when he turned the charm onto her and made her melt. She felt exclusive, wanted, and dared to think he did things just for her. But then a moment would come when she saw him charming someone else—a suspect, a waitress, or this young man—and she would remember that Booth charmed everyone.

He intoxicated her, but that did not make her special to him. She was just Bones and he was just being Booth.

~Q~

Once dinner was finished and the hour growing late, Dr. Wyatt offered to drive Sweets back to the Hoover Building to retrieve his car. Brennan stayed behind to help Booth tidy the kitchen and put away the dishes. When they were finished cleaning, Booth offered her a beer and they retired to the living room.

The evening had been light-hearted and carefree, remarkable considering the heavy exchange that had precipitated Sweets being dragged unwillingly out of his office to join them. Scars on their backs both metaphorical and literal had been revealed, yet the remainder of the evening was filled with companionship, laughter, good food and an excellent bottle of wine. Still, there were those scars...

Brennan took a deep pull from her beer, lost in contemplation about Booth's reluctant admission: that if it hadn't been for his grandfather, he might have killed himself as a teen. She'd always believed Booth had grown up in a more idyllic way than her own disjointed lurch through adolescence. Where she had been awkward and an outcast, a virgin until at age 22 she took it upon herself to approach a man and ask him to teach her about sex, Booth had been popular and inundated with multiple willing sex partners. Where she had dodged blows, had barely escaped death in a car trunk, and had been shunted from one house to another, he had grown up with a mother who wrote jingles and a father who was a Vietnam pilot-turned-barber.

It was only recently that she'd learned Booth's father was also an alcoholic. Not only that, as Cam had recently revealed to her, an abusive alcoholic. After Cam had explained about the Booth family a few months ago, Brennan had concluded Booth's broken radius must have come from defending his younger brother. And then, somewhere in all of that, Booth's grandfather had saved him from despair. But that was something she'd only learned tonight, in the fourth year of their partnership.

As she turned all of this over in her mind, she didn't notice Booth's furtive glances or that he was lost in his own thoughts. When he spoke up at last, she was almost startled.

"You never talk about your time in foster care."

Remembering what she'd told him—the car trunk, the two days in the dark—Brennan closed her eyes and shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it, Booth."

"Why not?"

"Why do you think?"

"You told Sweets, but not me," he complained.

Turning her head sharply, she sensed her mandible had dropped low in astonishment. "You were there. I told you both."

"Why did you decide to tell him that story tonight?"

Because she'd seen the proof. Gleaming white in the hazy light of the death metal abattoir, the silent crisscross of fibrous tissue marring Sweets's epidermis had screamed up at her. She had known instantly what caused that scar tissue to develop, exactly what kind of whip had been used to flay the tender flesh off his scapulae. She could tell by the stretched fibers that the scar tissue was very ancient, having formed when he was a young child and stretched taut over the years as his body grew but the scar tissue could not expand enough to accommodate the growth.

_"You belong here. You got the bruises. You got that same lost look." _

Brennan felt sadness pinching below her jaw, an increase in pressure forcing lachrymal fluid out through her tear ducts and across the surface of her eyes. Sweets had been very young when it happened, younger than Parker. "He's one of us," she whispered, knowing that it made no rational sense that she was speaking to that long ago girl named Jennifer; to Kelly Morris; to Shawn Cook.

"What do you mean, one of you."

"An orphan. Abused. Unwanted."

Booth shook his head. "He _was_ wanted, Bones. Someone adopted him."

Envy. That's what pulsed through her when Booth reminded her of how she was different from Sweets. Envy, unacceptable and offensive, morally wrong. _Be glad for him,_ she told herself fiercely. It was right that he was adopted, that someone had chosen him and loved him. Like Margaret had chosen Charlie and Shawn and like she wished someone had chosen her. Brennan pushed off the sofa, pacing toward the kitchen without any sense of direction or purpose.

"What's wrong," he asked, leaving the sofa to stand and watch, to wonder.

"Nothing." She stopped, dumped another bolus of beer down her throat, wished it was something stronger. Something that would take the knowing away, drown the memories and blot out Booth's angry eyes when he told her he'd nearly killed himself.

Booth's eyes had narrowed as he watched her. The question, so very unexpected, caught her by surprise. "When did your grandfather get you out of foster care?"

She froze, confused. "What?"

"Your grandfather. You told me you were in foster care until your grandfather got you out."

But she could tell just from the way he was looking at her that he'd figured her out. She wondered if he'd always known, or if he'd only just gotten there now.

"I don't have a grandfather. I aged out." She lifted her eyes uneasily, wondering how he would take that given that she was always such a stickler for the truth. And knowing now that Booth had been saved by a grandfather brought stinging tears too close to the surface. More envy. She was so very black-hearted and twisted to envy that, she knew it. But she couldn't help it: her younger self had cried in vain for months, wishing and praying for someone to care enough to rescue her.

"You lied," he agreed softly, but without recrimination. "Why?"

"Because I had no family and I was too intelligent and too awkward and too ugly. And I _don't_ want to talk about it!" she hissed.

He glared, angry with her and for her and at the nameless bastard who had done such a horrible thing. "You were locked in a car trunk for two days!"

Why did Booth do this to her, make her feel things? She could feel it all roiling, boiling, twisting and turning, merging into a funnel cloud that would rip up everything in its path once it touched down. The finger of God, so they called it. A tornado of anger, fear, grief, suffering, and hopelessness coiled and stretched across the gulf between them.

"Do you think _that's_ the worst thing that ever happened to me?" she ground out, furious with him for bringing it up. "At least that didn't leave any scars."

"Scars!" he exclaimed with horror. "Where?"

"Doesn't matter," she said furiously.

"What's the worst thing that happened to you?" he persisted.

"It doesn't matter, Booth."

"Why won't you talk about it?" he growled.

_"You have to talk about it," the psychiatrist had asserted._

_"No," she'd said._

_"Tell me what you were feeling in the trunk. Were you afraid?"_

_"No!"_

_"You have to face it sooner or later, Temperance."_

Cornered and looking for an escape, she turned the tables on him. _Never let them see._ Push back. Attack. "You never talk, either. You didn't tell me about your dad. Or about Jared."

The transformation of his expression would have been unnerving if she hadn't been so determined to push him away. As it was, she figured she'd succeeded when she saw his eyes darken, his cheeks sharpen, and his mouth harden into a grim line.

"Jared."

He was angry now, and her heart slowed as fear receded. Brennan knew she could handle anger and conflict as long as she didn't have to go back into that dark place. She pulled the strings of anger and hurt, plucked them expertly and spun the conflict in a different direction, let her anger simmer under the accusation that would set him off like a bottle rocket. "You didn't tell me I shouldn't trust him."

"Why should I have to tell you that?" he spat. "Isn't it obvious that you should trust your partner for four years over a man you just met?"

Stricken by the rebuke, she bit her lip but refused to back down. She had her reasons. "He was your brother. I thought … I thought that meant he'd be like you."

"Better than me, you mean. Better looking. Better at his job. More powerful and successful. The real alpha male."

His bitter outpouring shocked her.

"Better in bed, too?" he snarled.

"I didn't sleep with him," she exclaimed, so startled at the accusation that she didn't address her obvious lack of points of comparison.

Booth stepped toward her, his anger pulsing between them. "No, you just let him fill your head with lies instead."

The innuendo hung between them.

Furious herself now, Brennan pushed him back further, harder. "Maybe I wouldn't have if you would just talk to me! You always expect me to share everything with you, but you never reciprocate! What do I know about you, Booth? Nothing!"

"How can you say that? Hell, I've told you things no one else knows!"

"Oh, really?" she stormed. "Let's talk about the things you've shared with me. I didn't know you had a live-in girlfriend until I went to your _house_ to give you a file and you both showed up at the door half naked. I didn't know you had a son until _Hodgins_ told me. I didn't know you were dating my _boss_ until I caught you holding hands. I didn't know your father was an alcoholic until _Cam_ told me! I didn't know there was conflict between you and Jared until Cam told me that, too. I didn't know he would try to sabotage you because you are an honest man—or at least I thought you were—and I mistakenly believed your brother would be honest, too. You didn't tell me why you lost the RICO bust even when I asked you directly. You don't tell me anything, Booth."

And that should tell her everything.

"So you decided to date my brother?"

Brennan stalled for a moment. He sounded jealous, but he'd said at the time that he didn't care. And it wasn't really a date, she had merely served as Jared's social companion for the evening. "You didn't have a problem with it when Cam was the one going with him."

"Cam is just a friend."

What was happening here? She shook her head slightly, growing even more confused. "What am I, Booth?"

Their eyes snagged and pulled viciously, their faces flushed and her lips parting slightly in shock. Did he want her? Was that why? Brennan's heart tumbled wildly at the thought, her knees shaking.

He didn't respond, so she persisted in asking, "Why was it okay for Cam to go with him, but not me?"

As the question fluttered slowly to the ground, unanswered, she shook herself for being foolish. What was she thinking, to suspect even for a moment that he might be jealous, that he might care who she dated. "It was just that one dinner at the White House. Anthropologically, the opportunity to get inside that place and witness the culture of power and influence up close … how could I pass that up?"

Booth rolled his eyes. "Oh, of course. You just wanted to do some research."

Though she recognized the sarcasm, Brennan didn't understand why he was using it. It didn't make sense. "He just wanted someone to go with him and Cam backed out. Remember? And I thought it would be safe because Jared is your brother. You said you didn't mind." _And I could finally learn something about you,_ she added silently.

"Safe." He stepped into her space, his presence overwhelming. "You actually believed I was a loser because of something Jared said."

"I never said that!" Shaking, she retreated and turned for the kitchen. The forgotten bottle of beer in her hand bumped against the doorjamb and she lifted it unsteadily to take another sip. It was something to do while she tried to understand what they were arguing about.

"You told me I sabotaged myself because I was afraid of success."

She winced, knowing it was an erroneous first premise that had led her to that mistake. She'd believed one honest Booth equaled another. That had been a mistake, but what she'd heard hadn't been completely beyond the realm of possibility. After all, she'd just thrown out the bait again a moment ago and he'd refused to even nibble. "Jared said you don't take risks, and the evidence he provided made his assessment plausible."

"What 'evidence' did he give that made you believe him, damn-it!"

Depositing her nearly-finished beer on the kitchen counter, she returned to the question he'd asked. Facing her partner, she lifted her jaw and even as she told him, she had no idea where this was going to lead. "Your brother kissed me and then told me he was sure you'd never taken that risk."

With a curse, Booth stalked over and grabbed her by the arms. "He kissed you."

"I didn't expect him to," she defended, and wondered why she was tolerating his physically aggressive behavior. Three years ago, she'd have had him on his back already, her foot at his throat. Trying to decipher if Booth was finally jealous or defending her honor, she dispelled the notion that the kiss had been anything other than fleeting and anticlimactic. "I didn't encourage him. It was brief. But…."

"But what," he asked dangerously and pulled her close enough to kiss her right then.

Terrified not of him, but of his reasons, she raised her eyes to his and dared to ask. "Why don't you?"

"Are you seriously asking me that?"

For one moment it looked like he was going to, his eyes nearly black as they fell on her mouth. Feminine dread thrilled her body at the recognition of his raw male energy and all the potential it promised. She waited and wondered if she wanted him to or not. She wanted to know what he was thinking.

The moment stretched, snapped, and then it passed. Searching his face for an answer that was not forthcoming, Brennan shook her head sadly. "Never mind."

She pulled loose, relieved that he let her go easily. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked." There was the line, his line. Her messenger bag was hanging on the back of a chair, waiting for her to grab it and run. Taking it, she avoided his gaze and started for the door.

"Do you want me to kiss you, Bones?"

Letting out a shocked little gasp, she kept her eyes on the door and wondered what the right answer was. She needed more information before she could reply. "Do you want to, Booth?"

She glanced at him then, saw his closed expression and his eyes looking out the window. His jaw tense, he said nothing. She waited a full sixty seconds. "That's what I thought."

There was nothing left to say after that. Confused, she let herself out.

Somehow, the next day they started a new case and it seemed as if their argument the night before hadn't happened. They never spoke of any of it again.

~Q~

Slumping back into their respective seats, Brennan and Booth exchanged quizzical glances when Sweets ranted about the meaning of their first case together and the fact that they had kissed.

"You are totally messed up! I always said that you could never kiss because if you did, then the dam would break. Did the dam break?"

She felt the wrinkle building in her nose and between her brows as the incomprehensible metaphor failed to become comprehensible. What dam? Brennan understood the idea of something being held back, but in the beginning they had held nothing back. The line didn't exist that night. He erased it when he fired her. It was drawn again the next day and had only grown darker and thicker as the years went past.

Brennan glanced at Booth, completely confused. He sensed it and leaned toward her to whisper the explanation. "He still thinks we slept together."

They had just spent the last couple of hours going over that case, the kiss, and everything that followed. Another searing flashback of Booth's mouth on hers smoldered under her thoughts, along with Booth's hypnotic voice. _"Making love is when two people become one."_ It twined together in her like steel cables, each strand twisting with the others to create an object with incredible tensile strength: kissing, drawing lines, holding back, crossing lines, kissing, dams breaking, kissing leading to sex, but with some people it can never be just sex, it's making love, love, in love with him, wanting him, "do you want to, Booth," "that's what I thought," stories and dreams during a coma, "I love you … atta-girl," he's not in love with her.

One inescapable conclusion tumbled out of her. "We're not in love with each other."

Because she knew Booth wasn't in love with her.

When they left Sweets to get dinner, somehow their footsteps carried them away from the Hoover building and the nearby restaurants. Laughing together over the insanity of Sweets's book and clichéd analyses of them both, neither placed much stock in the young psychologist's conclusions. They wandered past the Washington Monument, past the floodlit ring of fountains at the World War II Memorial, past the Reflecting Pool to their favorite coffee cart (but it was closed at this late hour) and further still to the nearly empty plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

"I hate psychology," she finished with a mental curse.

Turning to look back toward the place they'd started, she saw the glowing obelisk of the Washington Monument pointing an elegant finger toward the moon, and the radiant dome of the Capitol Building floating behind that. His FBI and her Jeffersonian were somewhere slightly left, one mile away. They'd come a long way since then.

That's where she was looking when he said, "I'm the gambler. I believe in giving this a chance."

This?

She swallowed heavily, no less stunned by the suddenness of it than if he had abruptly pushed her backwards off the steps.

He stepped closer into her line of sight, his eyes holding hers. "Look I want to give this a shot."

What _this_? What was he saying?

She froze, an almost hope entering her along with dismay because the timing could not be ignored. Because her timing was ever out of step, she knew bad timing when she saw it. His was worse, so much worse. Coma dreams, gambling and kisses, the promise of sex, Sweets telling him what he felt.

"You mean, us?" _Please don't ask now. Not now. Not when I can't believe you. Not now….._

He nodded, his eyes drinking her in as they never had before; or rather, not since that long ago rainy night. He was remembering it, remembering that he'd wanted it with her, that lure of passion, pleasure and release.

Everyone leaves. Love doesn't last. The chemicals wear off within four years. Having a mission took the human variables out of the equation, however; it took her poisonous influence and contained it. Working together as partners to solve murders was what gave them strength. That mission for something outside of them both held them as one, but he wanted to erase the line that drew them together, leave it open and then … then history would repeat itself.

So she shook her head. "No, the FBI won't let us work together as a couple."

"Don't do that," he said. "That is no reason…." Booth reached for her, silencing her protest with a kiss.

She responded for a second; for just one glorious second her mouth melted under his and her hands splayed against his chest and it was just like before. His touch and everything about him obliterated reason. She knew she would be making love, but she couldn't sustain it.

Everyone left her. There was something about Temperance Brennan that made everyone walk away.

The line protected them, the line around and between them that kept her toxin enclosed also kept him close, but not too close. That was why, abruptly, she pushed hard, pushed him back, and slapped his hands away. "No. _No!_"

Booth's arguments filtered vaguely through her half-throttled mind, making little sense. Something about thirty years and old people, and he knew. It was irrational, unfathomable, nothing she could have any confidence in. "I am not a gambler, I'm a scientist. I can't change. I don't know how."

And then she was crying, because she sensed this was important but she didn't understand what he was asking for. A chance for thirty years, and so much risk. They could lose their partnership, they could lose each other. Her voice broke as she mourned. "I don't know how."

He gave up immediately just as he had before. "You're right. Okay, you're right."

Really, everyone did eventually: everyone gave up on her.

She knew that was wrong, she was wrong. Confused still and now frightened that he would be angry, Brennan shakily wiped her tears away. "Can we still work together?"

"Yeah," he sighed.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"But I've gotta move on," he added quietly.

"I know," she agreed. But she didn't really. If he really loved her, he would try again, wouldn't he? When the timing was better. It was only months later that it became clear to her just how ephemeral love could be. He'd told her he'd always known, and yet had given up on her less than five minutes later.

~Q~

When they left each other for a year, Booth assured Brennan that everything was going to change once they got back. Always one to keep his promises, Booth returned from Afghanistan attached to Hannah Burley, the beautiful and lively reporter from CNN. When he showed her the photo of Hannah, Brennan smiled and agreed that Hannah was wonderful while something inside of her died: that small part of her that had hoped it was only a matter of time before Booth's definition of love prevailed and he tried again when the time was right. That part had wanted him to argue—to convince her, to keep trying—but as Hannah beamed up at her, it gasped its last mortal breath and vanished in a wisp of smoke.

Brennan withstood the change in their relationship with barely an outward flicker of pain. He had warned her, because he was Booth and he kept his promises and what he promised came to pass. She endured because she knew everything changes and all relationships are temporary.

She went to work and stayed there, the calm mask firmly in place. Booth at first seemed to be angry with her, gouging into her with little comments that made her bleed under the mask.

The couple they'd found in the cave were a college-educated white woman and a Central American male migrant worker. The curious pair seemed to have nothing in common, yet something had drawn them together. As usual, Booth and Brennan sat over coffee and argued with each other while Sweets played referee.

Booth insisted, "just because they have different backgrounds, they can't be in love? It's not possible for two people to overcome their differences?"

Brennan shook her head, knowing from experience now. "_We_ couldn't," she reminded him.

He narrowed his eyes, surprised and uncomfortable at the mention of what they once had been. "This is not about us."

Hesitantly, Brennan confessed, "While I was away, I imagined us together."

Sweets looked shocked, his jaw falling open.

Booth scowled because there were so many implications there that Brennan knew he wouldn't want to face now that he was with Hannah, and especially with Sweets looking on. But she had a point to make, so she continued, her voice growing stronger as she recalled to herself why she'd said no to gambling their friendship on sex and romance. "While pleasant, it was clearly a fantasy, because we are also anomalous. But you were lucky enough to meet someone with whom you have parity."

"Love," Booth declared tightly. "With whom I have _love_."

She nodded, dropping her eyes to the table, unable to see through the blurring of tears. Right. He loved Hannah and it was as serious as a heart attack. She wondered how long Booth had given Hannah to make up her mind about leaving her career for him. Maybe more than five minutes. Or maybe Hannah really was better for him and Brennan needed to just let go.

"Love is thinking of someone before yourself. It's giving your life, if necessary, for that person. It's love." Booth assured her of this just a few hours later, while waiting for Hannah to arrive.

Brennan gazed down into her drink and decided she would put it to the test. If she loved Booth, she would show it by letting him go gracefully. She would think of him first, because he was happy with Hannah and she wanted him to be happy.

~Q~

Still, accepting that he had moved away from her hurt. There were no more dinners, no more drinks after work. There was no one to talk to or argue with, no one to make sure she kept reasonable hours at work. She never saw Parker, a loss that stunned her for its unexpectedness. She hadn't factored any of these losses into her understanding of how things were going to change between them. Booth ripped himself out of her world and Brennan finally had to face the truth: letting him move on meant she had to move on, too.

There was no point in pining for the impossible, no point in wasting her life on wishing it had unfolded differently. She had spent the last few months in a fog of pain, letting him go without actually letting go. And so when the rain poured and the tires screeched and the only reason she didn't die right then was because Booth unexpectedly darted into the street to grab her away from the careening car, she saw that she had to change. She had let herself become so consumed by misery that she didn't notice her surroundings, and what did that imply ... that she wanted to die?

That's when she understood there was a difference between believing in fate and knowing what fate actually was. Booth had saved her, but hadn't saved himself for her. If there was more than one kind of family, then there could be more than one kind of fate. Perhaps Booth realized he had been mistaken when he had assumed they were fated to be together. He'd accepted that and moved on. It was time she did the same.

"She never gave him a chance," Brennan murmured. That was how she ripped herself free of her own morass and embraced the reality that awaited her. There was no such thing as fate, she'd known that all along.

"I got the signal, Booth," she admitted quietly. "I don't want to have any regrets."

Even in the dark, she could see his jaw flexing and drawing tight. His fingers coiled white against the steering wheel. "I'm with someone now," he finally said, his voice flat. "I love Hannah. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but those are the facts. And Hannah is not a consolation prize."

"I understand," she whispered, embracing the darkness of despair because the only way to move beyond regret was to accept that it existed in the first place. "I missed my chance."

With that acceptance of her mistake she broke, for a brief moment unable to contain the sobs shaking her into a state of mortified pain that she wished he wasn't there to see. _Never let them see you cry. Never let them see what they can do to you._

Within moments Brennan pulled deeply on the reserve of stoicism that was always her salvation, forcing the tears back by will and determination. Forcing herself to push forward through her own steely resolve that nothing would break her, not even Booth. She would not let him see any further proof of the damage she would have to repair. Brennan forced the words out, made it sound like she had already begun 'moving on.'

"My whole world turned upside down. I can adjust."

"I did," he said roughly. She heard a curious splicing of anger and hope. Brennan shuddered from the chill of her wet clothes and his bitter reassurance. Turning her head toward the window when she couldn't fully hide the pain she knew still lingered on her face, she wondered why they say 'broken hearts.' Muscles don't break, they are crushed; bones pulverize. She felt as if her entire thoracic cage had been crushed and pulverized from the inside out. There was nothing inside her but a mash of pain. Did Booth ever feel this way?

She couldn't see how.

How long did it take Booth to adjust, she recalled uncharitably. Two weeks? Three days? Long enough to meet Catherine Bryer. Long enough to bring home Hannah Burley. "Yes, you did." She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the agony because arguing with him was only making it worse.

"Do you want me to, uh, call someone to be with you, or…?"

_Or what,_ she thought with despair. _Let you sit and pity me?_ She pulled on anger, she pulled on pride, she pulled on the familiar. _Never let them see you cry._ The last thing she wanted was anyone else knowing about this moment of abject humiliation. It was bad enough that Booth knew, but she trusted him to keep her secret. He'd said a year ago that what went on between them was theirs so she thought she could count on him for that, at least. They would still be partners, they would be casual friends. He would be happy with Hannah and Brennan would go back to what was familiar.

"No." Noting the rain streaking down like teardrops outside the SUV, Brennan turned away for the rest of the journey to her apartment. All the while she stared blindly out the window, preparing herself for the moment he would leave her at the sidewalk and go home to Hannah. This is reality, she told herself. _Love doesn't last and everyone leaves. Even Booth. You knew this day was coming._

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "Alone."

_I've been alone all of my life. _

_That's my fate._

~Q~


	8. Love is a Chemical that Causes Delusion

Disclaimer: Bones still is not mine. I still am not rich. More tuition is coming due in a couple of months, so really, it's not worth it to sue me.

Author's Note: I know the previous chapter was really dark and I'm sorry to make everyone suffer. that's one of the reasons I'm updating quickly, so my poor readers aren't depressed too long. It's going to stay kind of dim through the next couple of chapters but I promise there is light (and love) at the end of the tunnel.

I really want to thank all of the people who are spending their time reading this story. There are so many great stories out there, it's an honor that you're choosing mine. :) I am especially grateful to those who have left reviews. Writing this very angsty story is emotionally exhausting for me because I have to put myself in that state of mind in order to describe the physical sensations of the emotions. The reason I'm doing that is because Brennan doesn't allow herself the release of tears (very often) or talking it out. She tries to bury her feelings, but it takes a physical toll. It's quite draining, actually.

It's hard for you to read ... believe me when I say it's hard for me to write as well. The reviews help me recover, giving me some light to look forward to along this dark road. I deeply appreciate every single person who leaves a review.

We are continuing our previous time-traveling trip, looking at how Booth and Brennan finally came together as a couple.

~Q~

**Chapter Eight**

_"Love is a chemical process that causes delusion!"_

Drawing a deep breath, Hannah finally confessed why she had been avoiding Brennan. "I found out about you and Seeley. Your talk, how you feel."

"Booth … told you?" Horror and mortification, betrayal, hurt. Pain. Humiliation. Anger. Brennan felt her head whirling in vertigo from all the emotions clawing at her and clamoring for supremacy. The one that finally prevailed was fear, the need for self-preservation, and she forced a blank expression to cover it all. She wished it were possible to reach behind her to grab the hilt of the metaphorical knife Hannah had just uncovered, to hide that too, but years of training told her she was going to have to live with it. Pulling out the knife would make her bleed too much.

This hurt worse than learning her parents had deliberately left her, worse than Russ's broken promise, worse than Andrea Yeates telling her there wasn't enough time and wouldn't be room anyway. It was worse than Zack. She hadn't known such pain was possible and trembled with a sudden drop in blood pressure, her body's involuntary reaction to the storm raging along every nerve. "He shouldn't have done that."

For six years she had held Booth high on a pedestal, trusting always that he knew hearts, he was honest, he knew her, he would always protect her. In the last few months, he'd edged closer and closer to tippling but when Hannah revealed that he'd shared what was 'theirs,' he leaped off with a crash. Had she ever really known Booth? Had she deluded herself about him for all this time?

Too dazed to move, Brennan stood mutely and waited for the shock to stop scrambling her senses. To unlock her mind and give her something to hold onto now that Booth was gone. Truly gone.

Though by all rights she was a rival, Hannah was also compassionate. She regarded Brennan with a clear mix of sympathy and understanding, and perhaps just enough outrage on Brennan's behalf to soothe the wound a little. "He had to. We're a couple."

Hannah's explanation blasted Brennan's frozen thoughts with hot water, loosening them to gush forth and orient her. Reason. Always look for the cause, always try to explain.

At that moment in Booth's SUV, shivering and cold, trying to understand why Lauran Eames had affected her so, Brennan had reached out to her best friend as someone to confide in and confess to. It just so happened that he was also the reason she had so much to confess and confide, the source of her misery and regret. She knew she wasn't asking Booth to cheat on Hannah, but it could be viewed that way.

He must have thought so, Brennan realized. That was why he'd dismissed her. That must be why he'd told Hannah.

Logically, anthropologically, that was acceptable: monogamous relationships required honesty. She had unwittingly placed him in an awkward position, tested his loyalty to her and to Hannah without realizing it. Being the honorable man he was, of course Booth had done the right thing. Brennan knew deep down that she would have been horrified if he'd acted on the perceived offer that he betray Hannah for her.

This is why, she reminded herself. This is why you need to stick with rational behavior. Getting emotional never causes anything but trouble. Now fully mortified and remorseful as well, Brennan set to work repairing the damage, both to Booth and to his relationship with Hannah. But she was still so disoriented that it sounded scattered even to her own ears. "I didn't want to hurt you. I was just … I shouldn't have said anything to him."

This was going to be awkward, uncomfortable. Hannah would view her as a threat. Knowing she would need to withdraw even further from Booth in order to reassure Hannah, Brennan pushed back her emotions again. She would end their partnership if that was what Hannah wanted.

To her surprise, Hannah admitted confidently, "I would have done the same thing, and you would have understood, right?"

Brennan regarded Hannah solemnly, sensing the gift was not her forgiveness, but her understanding and unspoken trust. They were still going to be friends.

Their friendship strengthened when they went out for drinks together the next evening, and it remained steady while Booth and Hannah drew closer together. Brennan started repairing herself, toyed with dating, bonded with Angela over the pregnancy. Weeks passed and the pain that had seared so deeply was now a quiet background noise, simply ambient instead of focal. She could breathe again.

A fractured bone can recover function within 6 weeks, but it takes up to a year for a fracture to completely remodel. The six weeks passed and she was growing stronger.

The friendship she had with Hannah ended up being the reason Hannah called her in tears a few weeks later, devastated because Booth had proposed and she had declined, and he was angry. Hannah pleaded with Brennan to go take care of him.

She thought she'd been recovering but seeing Booth alone like that had put her strength to the test.

Approaching him at the Founding Fathers was the most terrifying and natural thing she'd ever done. A vibrating wall of fury separated them, so charged that she could feel the tiny vellus hairs on her arms rise up in defense. Despite her fear, her heart contracted in sorrow to see him so in pain, her muscles contracted in sympathy and pushed her through the veil of anger to reach his side.

~Q~

Booth said quietly, "Just, uh … I'm just angry. I'm angry."

Brennan nearly cringed at the abrupt statement that had followed a moment of lighthearted laughter about the magical heating powers of microwaves. Where had this come from? Her face blanched, she looked at him uncertainly, wondering what she had done to anger him.

He saw her worry and quickly clarified, "Not at you."

She sighed with relief. "Okay."

Then she waited, giving her silence as she so often did. Booth was an active man, full of life and movement, words and feelings, but Brennan was often still and contemplative. When he needed to get his worries out, he slowed down, the thoughts drabbling out in clumps, and Brennan would always sit silent and still while Booth ruminated and finally expelled whatever was bothering him. She never knew if it was truly the right thing to do, but it always seemed to be effective, especially if she touched him.

Yet she couldn't touch him this time. Since the night she'd declined when he'd asked her to consider a relationship, the thicker line he'd drawn between them was still there. Though they had talked about 'them' in the elevator today, Brennan didn't know what had been resolved other than the need to talk.

Booth had agreed a physical relationship would be satisfying, "but then what…? As a couple, you and me would never…."

"No, it would never work," she had agreed quickly, giving him the out he was looking for. She knew that opportunity had passed. There would be no second chances, so she was staying beside him while he lingered and recovered. Once he moved on again, she didn't know which direction he would take but she would go beside him wherever he went. _"I'm standing right beside you, Booth. Like I always have. Like I always will."_

Booth didn't try to explain why he was angry, perhaps because he knew he didn't need to. "I just need time, that's all. I just need time to kind of … hang back, and find that inner peace before I, you know, get back out there."

Get back out there, move on again. Booth would find another woman to love and try again. Brennan clamped down fiercely on the pain that would never really leave her, determined to show him that she was keeping the bargain they'd made. They were partners who solved murders together and sometimes celebrated afterwards with a drink. The night Hannah rejected him, he'd told her she could either drink with him, or leave. She had chosen to drink and would conceal the pain of each swallow scorching her insides because her drinking with him is what he needed and all he would offer. If it was poison, she would still drink it.

"You know what we're talking about here, right?" Booth's chocolate eyes looked darker in the candle light, stripped of their sweetness and light, but holding hers and waiting for her to read him.

Could she read him still? Her heart pulsed harder, her eyes widening and her adrenal glands pushing their products deeply into her bloodstream. Was it possible…? She hardly dared to breathe, terrified the slightest movement would burst this evanescent moment.

"Yes," she said softly, as if slowly coming awake to find reality was better than the dream.

It hadn't been poison she was drinking with him all this time, it had been bitterly medicinal. He offered her a drink and she'd trusted him, trusted herself, trusted them. She drank, and it healed them.

He held her gaze in the old way, the way of all their years ago when he'd whispered of fate and 'guy hugs' and being the center. "You and me … you know, and … and love … happiness and life."

He paused. Another long gaze that reached into her soul so deeply she felt the tug. "And fate," he dared her.

_Do you believe in fate?_

Her parents had named her Joy on the day she was born. Then they made the mistake that sent them hiding, killing Joy and making her into Temperance, the girl who grew up tempered with a lifetime of pain. With Booth's assurance, Joy came surging back, bringing light to her eyes and from her heart erupted a wide beam of happiness that spilled over her face in the form of a brilliant smile.

"I don't believe in fate," she reminded him, thinking to their first moment and wondering if she'd ever felt more hope than she did now, in _this_ moment.

Booth gave her a "that's-not-the-point" look, which she quickly took to heart. Now was not the time for joking. "But, I know what we're talking about."

He nodded, satisfied.

After a long pause, Brennan offered, "I am improving."

"Improving?"

"Yes. I'm … quite strong."

He chuckled lightly. "Yeah, well, you've always been strong."

_No, I haven't._ She had finally realized that most of her life she had attempted to be impervious—inflexible and impermeable so that nothing could get inside or around her. That way nothing could hurt her, but she couldn't connect to anyone when she was so carefully barricaded. What she needed to become was strong—flexible, durable, able to withstand damage rather than simply to prevent it. Because ... because love is fleeting and everyone leaves, but Brennan had learned to take what was offered when it came.

She would take Booth the next time he offered himself. She would hold on while it lasted. And when it ended, she knew now that she was strong enough to survive the loss.

'"You know the difference between strength and imperviousness, right?"

"No. Not if you're going to get all scientific on me," he teased.

She laughed, marveling that this moment felt so ordinary and yet so crucial at the same time. "Well, uh, a substance that is impervious to damage doesn't need to be strong. When you and I met, I was an impervious substance. Now I am a strong substance."

Hoping he realized she was saying she was ready to take the risk that once terrified her, she waited for Booth to respond.

"I think I know what you mean," he said.

"A time could come when … you aren't angry anymore, and … I'm strong enough to risk losing the last of my imperviousness. Maybe then, we could try to be together."

She would take the gamble he'd once suggested. The thought of changing them terrified her, but losing him again frightened her more.

A childlike grin illuminated his face. He excitedly insisted they had to write the dates they would be ready for each other down, and then burn them as a way to send their wishes out into the universe. It smacked of prayers and she didn't believe burning papers would make anything more or less likely to affect anything. Yet Booth's happiness influenced her and Brennan watched the paper in her fingertips become consumed by the combustion reaction that turned her wish to ashes and released smoke into the air along with their dreams.

The date she had written had been as profound as it was hopeful: _When Booth is ready_.

~Q~

For most of her life, Temperance Brennan had operated under the assumption that people didn't understand her. It wasn't until her intern bled and gasped out his final moments under Booth's calmly knowing hands that Brennan understood that people didn't understand her because she had held herself back too much. "Don't make me leave," Vincent gasped, pleading. She had cried, her heart throbbing with fear and grief and an inward horror that she was so distant a mentor he would actually think she didn't want him to stay.

"We love you!" she cried. "You've always been my favorite." But Vincent's life force departed even while she tried to hold him there. His eyes widened, his body trembled, and then the most profound emptiness she'd ever seen entered his eyes. His entire body lay before her, still warm, maybe his heart was even still twitching and the cellular activity she knew would continue for at least a few minutes until all oxygen reserves had been used up. But Vincent was _gone_.

He was gone and he never knew he was her favorite.

What good was it to love someone if they never know it? What good did it do for anyone if she loved them but never told them. What kind of person was she, to work so hard at protecting herself that she let others think she didn't care. She hurt them...

"What kind of person am I?" she asked Booth in the earliest hours before dawn, finally knowing she couldn't keep hiding herself.

Booth's explanation that Vincent simply hadn't wanted to die only partially reassured her.

"Can I just...?" she didn't know what she wanted, but what she needed was to show him.

"That's why I'm here," he promised. "I'm here." Booth's embrace brought her close and they fell together, enclosed in shared grief and the tears she finally allowed to fall.

"I'm not cold," she sobbed. "I feel things. I feel it."

"I know, baby. I know who you are."

He always knew.

~Q~

The shadows drifted slowly across the room, marking the path of the moon as it dipped towards the bottom sill of his bedroom window. In Booth's arms, Brennan stirred. She'd fallen silent a while ago; she'd thought he'd fallen asleep but his soft sigh now told her otherwise. He tightened his hold on her, as if wishing this moment could last a little longer. She wished that, too.

Yet she wanted more than just a moment. If yesterday's horror had any redeeming worth at all, it was to remind her that time never stopped and the amount either of them had left was ever growing shorter.

"Booth?"

"Yeah, Bones?"

Her voice came to him softly out of the darkness. "Are you still angry?"

Broadsky's face and Vincent's blood must have flooded his thoughts, for his arms tightened around her and his body tensed in fury and she tensed as well in preparation for being pushed away_._ But then perhaps, he remembered something else: a conversation from months ago, burning paper and a promise. Someday, maybe a day would come…. Someday, maybe today. Just that quickly, she knew he understood what she was really asking.

"No," he answered her. "I'm not angry anymore."

"Oh," she sighed.

Booth slid his hand along her jaw, lifting her face towards his. In the silvery light of the dying moon he ran his thumb over the curve of Brennan's cheek, below the soft glow of her eyes. "Temperance Brennan, are you strong enough?"

Fear gathered in her breast for a moment, tension coiling in her body as it nestled against his. This moment stretched and held suspended between them, the moment that would decide who they were. She was not impervious. Vincent was dead and her pain was still too sharp and Booth was in her arms, but for how long? It hurt and she was afraid, but a strong fortress withstands the attack. Pushing bravely against the instinct to retreat, to shelter herself, she whispered her reply. "Yes."

"Are you sure?"

Something molten poured into her chest, her belly, her soul, reawakening the flare of hope she felt at his first smile, at the first meeting of their eyes that long ago day. "I don't want you to think I don't care. I do care."

Booth bent towards her, letting their mouths meet in the moonlight. The kiss was sweet, soft, deepening steadily into mutual possession. She felt her mind, heart and soul slipping away, to be sealed up somewhere in the man she loved; and she wasn't afraid.

_Do you believe in fate?_

She closed her eyes, giving herself to the moment. Maybe. Maybe she believed it just then.

His hands slid through her hair, down her back, making her ache to be possessed by him. "I love you," she whispered. "Please, you have to know I love you."

"Yes," he answered. "I know."

~Q~

Three weeks later the test stick showed positive.

This was terror on an entirely different scale. Booth beamed, her hands shook. The baby grew, forcing Brennan to adapt in ways she'd never expected. The thought of being responsible for someone else's survival and happiness terrified her.

Seven months into the pregnancy, Booth found her crying on the sofa one night at three am.

"What's wrong," he asked, folding her into his arms. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm going to be a terrible mother," she sobbed.

"No you're not," he soothed. "Why would you say that?"

"I am," she insisted, frantic. "I can't sleep and she keeps kicking me and she won't stop moving and I'm so tired. I haven't slept for three nights. I got angry. I wanted to hit her."

Gesturing to her swollen belly, Brennan shuddered, horrified with herself, but Booth just held her tighter.

"What kind of mother gets angry with a fetus," she wailed. "It's irrational. I can't do this!"

He laughed a little, pressing kisses to her temple. "You're just exhausted so you're not thinking clearly. Come on, I'll stay up with you. We'll suffer together because we're partners, okay? That's what we do."

~Q~

The moment she knew what she had to do, Brennan began plotting out all the possible scenarios she might end up facing. Foremost among them was how to leave the most important person in her life in the way that would protect him most and hurt him least.

She calculated with precision what would happen if she told him first, before the departure. He would know that she was planning to turn fugitive, and the moment he knew, he faced a terrible ethical dilemma, not to mention the potential loss of his job. If he knew what she was planning, he would be required to stop her from doing it. He would have to arrest her. But if he did not stop her—if he looked the other way—then he would be forced to either lie or resign. He might even be imprisoned.

Booth, for as long as she had known him, was the most honest and noble man Brennan had ever known. The thought of forcing him to choose between love and truth, between her and his job, was unbearable. It was cruel because she knew his job was his path to redemption for all the lives he'd taken.

It was this quandary that made the decision for her: she would have to just go. But that brought her to the question that would prove their undoing. What to do with Christine?

Brennan was still breastfeeding; Christine was only a few months old. She had promised Booth that she would never deprive him of access to his child, yet the thought of leaving Christine behind tore a ragged hole in her heart. Pacing their bedroom in a fit of agony while Booth was out arguing with Caroline Julian for leniency, Brennan struggled to come to a decision. Once she let her emotions have any sway, she became paralyzed with grief and indecision.

There was only one way to cope with an evil and implacable foe like Christopher Pelant, however, and miring herself in sentimentality was not the way. Brennan pulled herself up sharply, realizing she knew the answer. She had to act with nothing but cold, hard reason. Just as she'd made the decision to run, then to not compromise Booth's honesty with her plans, now she knew she had to think objectively about Christine's welfare as well.

She knew with absolute certainty that she could not do what her own parents had done: she could not leave her child behind. The feeling of being abandoned, of being unwanted, was a horror she could never force upon any child. If she left Christine with Booth, Christine would know that her mother had voluntarily left her. But if she took Christine with her, Booth wouldn't have a choice. She could reassure Christine that Booth would never leave his child and it would be all Brennan's fault.

Christine would only know that both of her parents wanted her, and the loss of her father was only Brennan's fault. Booth's love for Christine would never be questioned. And that was how she finally reached her decision about whether to take Christine.

Still, she had Booth to think of.

Abruptly, Brennan stalked over to her laptop and flipped it open. She pulled up her favorite search engine and began checking the anthropological implications of christenings, declaring paternity and other social acts that signified parenthood. When she saw how easy the answer was, she sighed with relief.

When Booth returned home an hour later, Brennan told him they needed to proceed with the Christening immediately and she would most certainly attend. He thought she was anticipating her arrest and she allowed him to think it.

When they arrived at the church, she sucked in a frightened breath and walked into the vestibule with him, pausing while he dipped his fingers into the holy water and crossed himself. She glanced around the echoing, colorful space, noting the faint scent of waxed candles flickering in alcoves along the side and the silent vigil of various carved statues that surrounded the open space. She had been here with Booth a few times—most notably only a couple of days after surviving being buried alive—and always marveled at the Catholic Church's engagement of all five senses.

The priest met them, introducing himself, and explained they would proceed immediately to the baptismal font. Once they stood together, side by side, the priest began.

"Our Father in heaven, we stand before You on this day to welcome this child into Your Holy Family. With joy these parents have welcomed this child as a gift from God, the source of life, and Whom now wishes to bestow the divine gift of His own life upon this little one."

The priest turned to them. "What name do you give your child?"

Brennan glanced at Booth but kept quiet, letting him say it. Booth answered clearly. "Christine Angela Booth."

The moment the words passed his lips, Brennan relaxed. He had declared his daughter's name along with his own surname before his God, just as the ritual called for. There could be no doubt that he was Christine's father.

The priest turned and spoke again. "Christine Angela Booth, the Christian community welcomes you with great joy. In its name I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his cross. I now trace the cross on your forehead, and invite your parents to do the same."

He signed Christine on the forehead, in silence. Then he glanced at Booth and nodded. Booth dipped his fingers and traced a small cross on Christine's forehead, right between her brows. Once he was finished, Booth turned expectantly to Brennan. She swallowed nervously, completely uncertain it was appropriate for an atheist to do this. But Booth's eyes held hers and the priest nodded again encouragingly. With a sigh she acquiesced and repeated Booth's action.

Christine gurgled, completely oblivious to the sanctity of the moment.

"My dear brothers and sisters," the priest intoned, "let us ask our Lord Jesus Christ to look lovingly on this child who is to be baptized, on her parents, and on all the baptized. By the mystery of Your death and resurrection, bathe this child in light, give her the new life of baptism and welcome her into Your holy Church."

"Lord, hear our prayer," Booth murmured.

Brennan puzzled over the back-and-forth of the prayers, musing that it forced participation and full engagement of the faithful in attendance. It made her feel connected even though this wasn't her religion.

The priest continued his prayer, pausing after every sentence while Booth rejoined, "Lord hear our prayer."

"Through baptism and confirmation, make her Your faithful follower and a witness to Your gospel. … Lead her by a holy life to the joys of God's kingdom. … Make the lives of her parents examples of faith to inspire this child. … Keep her family always in Your love."

At the last, Brennan found herself joining in. "Lord, hear our prayer."

She felt Booth's eyes on her and turned her own gaze on him, melting with relief when she saw his happiness. These prayers conveyed His God's protection over Christine. Brennan knew it was superstitious foolishness, but it meant something to Booth. He would be comforted in knowing Christine's soul was protected, and that his God would take care of her.

The liturgy proceeded quickly, with pauses here and there for prayers, observations, and a prolonged questioning and promises session that Brennan could not participate in. She had no faith to profess nor any promises to keep other than to not interfere when Booth educated his child in spiritual matters. She figured she owed him this promise not to resist Christine's religious indoctrination, if nothing else.

But first she had to keep her own vow to return to him the moment it was safe.

"Is it your will that Christine Angela Booth should be baptized in the faith of the Church, which we have all professed with you?"

"It is," Booth answered firmly.

Brennan nodded, unable to speak for a moment. But the priest looked at her expectantly, so she hitched a breath and repeated hoarsely, "It is."

Lifting a small silver cup to dip into the font's blessed water, he poured the water gently over Christine, speaking. "Christine Angela Booth, I baptize you in the name of the Father … and of the Son … and of the Holy Spirit." With each pause, another cupful of water passed over Christine's head.

She fussed fretfully, causing Booth to lift her and hold her closer when it was over. He shushed her tenderly and she quieted.

After anointing her with chrism, a concluding round of prayers asked the blessings of Booth's God to cover Christine and both her parents. Booth's glowing visage etched itself into Brennan's heart, locking in a moment she wished never had to end. For this one, proud moment, he was happy.

Her heart felt like lead, barely able to beat under the weight of her misery.

They walked out into the street with Christine clutched tightly in her arms. Booth's smile hadn't departed the entire time, though there was an underlying seriousness in his touch. He told her he was going to go get the car and turned away.

"Booth!"

The frightened pitch caught him and turned him back.

"I love you. I want you to know that I'm not just with you because of the baby." She believed in fate because of him, she believed in love. She believed in him. _Please know this,_ she pleaded silently. _Please don't forget. Please believe me that I don't want to do this. I'll come back to you as soon as I can._

Booth returned to press a gentle kiss to her forehead, then he bent to Christine and did the same. "I'll just bring the car around and be right back."

Her heart splintered into ragged shards of glass, cutting her up from the inside out. Brennan watched him go, his back turned, fully trusting. Heaving a broken sob, she sensed the car pulling up behind her and her father leaping out to take Christine.

It only took a few moments to rip everything she held dear into shreds.

The fear of how permanent the destruction was never left her, nor did the tears that tracked silently down her cheeks for days afterwards. The only comfort was knowing her father had explained it to Booth. Unlike her parents, she hadn't been able to simply vanish. She couldn't do that to him.

~Q~


	9. We Fought All the Time

Disclaimer: Lest the Richard Bartletts of this world get any ideas, I do not own Bones.

Author's Note: I've a confession to make. I've been setting you all up. It's true. All those trips to the past, showing Brennan's history, were all meant to leave us right here, right now, so you can see things through her filter.

"Her filter?" you ask. That's right. We all have one, the sum of our personal history and experiences that is in place in front of us at all times, a filter that colors everything we see. It can distort and mislead us. If we place a red filter over our eyes, everything will look red to us. Is everything actually red? No. But unless we are aware that we're wearing the filter, all that red can seem perfectly normal, and the longer we see nothing but red, the more normal it will seem to us. We won't be aware of fact that nobody else sees nothing but red, because they aren't wearing the same filter we are. So the first step is to know we have a filter, next is to understand our filter makes everything look red, and finally we need to know our filter can also be changed. If we become aware of what our own filters are made of and work to change our views and experiences, then the other colors and possible interpretations will become visible to us.

~Q~

**Chapter Nine**

_"We Fought All the Time and Don't Like Each Other." _

One of the hallmarks of genius is the ability to recall and apply previously acquired information in new contexts, and that innate talent had first manifested in Temperance Brennan at a strikingly early age. She mastered the alphabet before age 2, and demonstrated that ability by pausing on a walk with her mother and lisping out "esh, tee, oh, pee. Stop!" And a day later, "tee, oh, pee. Top!" She was reading independently within a year.

In grade school, Brennan read the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest epic poems ever recovered. A hero seeking the key to immortality in order to restore his dead friend, Gilgamesh traveled the world until he found the immortal man, Utnapishtim. From Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh learned the story of how the gods were angry with noisy humanity, and planned to destroy every living thing with a terrible flood. The god of wisdom, Ea, intervened and instructed Utnapishtim to build a boat, including exact dimensions. Once it was complete, Utnapishtim and his family went aboard, taking with them all the animals of the field. It rained for forty days and the entire earth was covered in water. At the end, when the boat ran aground at the top of the mountain, Utnapishtim sent out a dove to see if the water had receded enough. Next he sent a swallow, and finally a raven which did not return. At this, Utnapishtim knew it was safe to leave the boat. He and his family offered a burnt sacrifice to the gods in thanks for being saved from the flood that destroyed every other living thing, and the goddess Ishtar set a rainbow in the sky as a promise from the gods that they would never flood the earth again.

Shocked as memory kicked in, 9 year old Temperance rushed to the Bible her parents kept and pulled it out. She read the story of Noah and the Flood, noting again the remarkable similarity in details. Then she flipped forward to the story of Abram leaving Sumer when God called him. She flipped to the back of the Bible where maps could be found. Not only had Abraham supposedly come from the same place the Epic of Gilgamesh originated, but he came from Ur of Sumer up to 200 years _after_ the oldest known version of the Gilgamesh story was recorded on a stone tablet.

That prompted her to begin looking for other flood stories, and she found them in abundance. She branched out from there to historical accounts of floods, and eventually the study of archeology and geology in her attempt to understand how so many stories from so many different times and cultures could exist. That led her to a broader interest in ancient human history and finally to anthropology.

But it started with remembering things.

She remembered everything.

The first case she worked with Booth, he'd told her he had a gambling problem. She'd never been sure why he told her that about himself, aside from his apparent interest in getting her into his bed. It wasn't until just over a year later that she softened and thought perhaps he'd intended something different with that confession.

While working with Booth on the Cleo Eller case, Brennan heard Cleo's father implore Booth for information about the investigation, "from one military man to another." She hadn't known Booth was in the military. Aside from the gambling issue he 'was working on,' she didn't know anything about Booth's personal life.

As they left and Brennan pointed out that Booth had lied to the Ellers—telling them Cleo hadn't suffered—Brennan puzzled over _him_. How did he know Cleo's parents wouldn't read the inquest report and discover his lie? How did he know they had been estranged from Cleo? For that matter, how had he known Judge Hasty was guilty of the young singer Gemma's murder when he'd had no facts whatsoever to lead him to such a conclusion. How did he know these things? Why did people tell him things?

When she asked him, he cut an irritated glance her way. "Getting information out of live people is a lot different than getting information out of a pile of bones. You have to offer up something of yourself, first."

But that wasn't what she really wanted to know. She wanted to know more about _him_, his metaphorical 'gut' and his instincts that defied logic yet seemed to be right. She wanted to follow up on what Cleo's father had implied and Booth had not denied. Brennan had gazed at him curiously and asked, "What exactly did you do in the military?"

Why did she ask? Unsure of the reason, Brennan waited and wondered why her own metaphorical 'gut' was telling her to ask him. She sensed it was important. Was this how it worked for him? A feeling that he seized upon? A niggling question that he asked because not asking was like leaving the irritating pebble in your shoe?

Booth stopped walking to glare at her. "You see what you did there? You asked a personal question without offering anything personal in return. And since I'm not a skeleton, you get zilch. Sorry."

Brennan had watched him with a perplexed knotting of her brows, little knowing how often he would continue to use a blunt verbal strike to deflect the questions she asked him. This was only the first time. But the lesson to offer something of herself before asking for information from another was what really mattered, especially when Angela unwittingly backed it up a few hours later.

He wouldn't tell her about his experience in the military, so she looked it up herself. By the time that case had ended, knowing that she wanted to know more about Booth and recalling what his conditions were, Brennan offered him something personal. She confessed her parents had vanished, that she knew how Cleo Eller's parents had felt. And Booth had reciprocated by explaining his mission to even things out on his 'cosmic balance sheet.'

Thereafter, when she wanted to know something from Booth, she started by telling him something about herself.

Over the years, Brennan shared so many things that she'd long ago lost count. She told him about her past, her parents, Russ leaving. She told him about Michael Stires, and even shared with him that she and Sully had 'slept together last night.' Every bit of herself that she offered to him went with a silent hope that he would give her something in return. Most of the time, he gave her nothing back.

Most of what she'd learned about Booth had come from outside sources or her own observations—almost nothing had come from Booth himself.

When she returned from the three months away, Brennan had been more desperate to share with Booth than ever because her greatest fear was that she'd hurt him too much. She told him everything that she had experienced along the journey, every thought and every fear, always with the hope that he would return it with his. That he would tell her what he'd gone through, what he'd felt, and they could comfort each other. But he kept his own silence and told her nothing.

Worse, sometimes he would even stop her from speaking, using kisses and distraction, using changes of topic or a sudden recollection that he needed to go take care of something first. Again and again she tried, finding that getting Booth to talk to her about anything other than work, or Christine or the Flyers was just as difficult as it ever was. There was so much more at stake now, and yet he was closed off.

"If they want a healthy, monogamous relationship, they should be forthright and honest," Brennan had told Booth once. Booth had hustled her out the door as he contradicted her. "Yeah, that's not the way a relationship is supposed to be." For someone who believed in love and monogamy, in permanency and marriage, she didn't understand how Booth could be so adverse to open communication.

Booth had never been one to be forthright about anything, really, but this time lack of disclosure was pulling them apart. Knowing that something festered under the cool glances and mercurial moods, Brennan took to heart the advice Hodgins had offered: "Make him tell you." She'd been trying to do that for over a week already, with distinctly unsatisfactory results.

If offering something of herself wasn't enough—it had only ever been moderately successful before, despite the astounding array of deeply personal information she'd shared with him over the years—then she had to find another way. That was the conundrum teasing her mind when Booth called and informed her that he and Sweets had decided upon a possible suspect, a woman who had threatened Bartlett as well as her ex-husband. Would she like to come with him to question the woman, Melanie Carmichael?

Of course she would. Brennan always wanted to be with Booth, that had never changed.

Booth handed her the file containing details from the altercation between the former Mr. & Mrs. Carmichael, a combination so explosive that it was a wonder neither of them had ended up in prison for attempted murder.

As they drove towards the home of the couple, Booth recounted a few of the more colorful altercations between the pair. "I mean, just look at the depositions. These two are insane."

Brennan read over one of the earlier efforts at mediation. "Melanie accused Gavin of not being a man."

Laughing, Booth continued that scene. "Gavin starts yelling at her for assault. It's nuts!"

"Some people are just not meant to be together," Brennan mused absently, her mind torn between her own worries over Booth and the need to focus on the facts in front of her. The depositions in her hand contained haunting words of loathing and contempt, peppered with vile insults such as Leroy Erickson had once pelted her with. The toxic sludge of verbal abuse surely would have left metaphorical scars on both people. Furthermore, Melanie had assaulted Gavin on more than one occasion, having to be pulled off him by Bartlett. Gavin had not been completely blameless either—at least once he had slapped Melanie in front of witnesses. The violence and mutual hatred glared up at her from the pages, evidence that some relationships should never have happened and that Bartlett, for all his faults, was probably doing this couple a favor by dissolving their ill-advised union.

Gavin had ended up the obvious beneficiary thanks to Bartlett's tenacity and clever manipulations, so perhaps Melanie had good reason to want Bartlett dead. Was this why Booth suspected her? Yet that didn't make sense. She had made threats against him, yet Melanie Carmichael's threats against her former husband were more numerous, more menacing in their explicit detail. Frowning, Brennan set to thinking it through. At the moment, Melanie did not make sense as a suspect in the death of Richard Bartlett.

Booth meanwhile was shaking his head, as if disagreeing with Brennan's assertion that some people do not belong together. "Well, they gave up after less than two years. I mean, marriage is about working through the tough times."

Gave up after two years? From what she could see, Brennan marveled that they hadn't parted ways much sooner. Brennan sensed Booth glancing at her, but her focus remained on the incriminating papers in front of her, and her cynical laugh burst out at the thought of this pair even being capable of civilized discourse, let alone actually working together to resolve their issues. The high level of animosity between Melanie and Gavin Carmichael indicated irreconcilable differences to a staggering degree. Then there was Richard Bartlett himself, a millionaire several times over thanks to people like Melanie and Gavin who never should have been married in the first place.

"More often, marriage is about _divorce_, which is why Bartlett could afford three homes and a plane."

All too often, people acted on hormonal impulses and when those pair-bonding hormones wore off, there was nothing to hold them together. There was no getting around reality and the fact that people give up. While giving up might seem bad, and most assuredly it was sad, sometimes in a case like Melanie and Gavin, giving up was in truth the only sensible course of action. They should have given up sooner than they did. Regardless, Brennan knew all too well that people give up and consequently the US divorce rate ran at nearly 50%. Because people break promises and love is ephemeral and people leave, men like Bartlett could swoop in and make a fortune off all that anger and chaos.

Booth pulled her away from those spiraling thoughts, redirecting her. "Well, the question is … I mean, why did Melanie meet with Bartlett and Gavin _after_ the divorce was settled?"

Grateful for the distraction, Brennan's thoughts skimmed over everything she'd just read: the viciousness, the contempt, the scathing insults. Melanie had clearly despised her husband, and his exceptionally talented divorce attorney must come in a distant second if the threats, insults and assaults recorded in these pages were anything to go by.

Killing Bartlett would not benefit Melanie at all because she would gain nothing from it in terms of fiscal compensation or of revenge. In both cases, Melanie would have benefited far more from killing Gavin. That was why Melanie didn't make sense as a suspect, and neither did Gavin.

"Logic dictates if she was going to kill anyone, it would be her ex-husband."

Abruptly aware that she had crossed the line and spoken of motive again unconsciously, Brennan glanced uneasily at Booth. He'd gotten angry with her for doing so this morning. As she waited, back pressing into her seat as if in preparation for a crash, Booth nodded.

"I agree." His gaze flicked to hers for the briefest instant. "We're on the same page."

_Are we?_ Brennan smiled at him, wanting it to be true. But then she couldn't hold it because the only book they were reading at the moment was their investigation into Bartlett's death. The book they were writing together, their life together, that book had fallen to the floor and she'd lost her place.

~Q~

Once they entered the house, they were startled to see Gavin Carmichael standing beside his former wife, hand resting on her shoulder as if they hadn't been at each others' throats mere weeks ago. Brennan set to watching both people intensely. Their body language showed great familiarity with each other, yet their lack of eye contact was significant. Booth had taught her the importance of eye contact.

"It is a little surprising to see you two together," Booth admitted once they were all settled. He and Brennan sat side by side, facing the couple whose vicious divorce had brought them here.

Melanie offered a guarded smile. "Not as surprised as we are. The reason Gavin and I met with Bartlett that night was to undo our divorce." She glanced at Gavin for a lingering moment.

Brennan's gaze on them intensified.

Quite surprised, Booth repeated, "Undo?"

"Yeah," Gavin confirmed. "I mean, we realized how childish we'd been. We always loved each other."

"And we only gave it two years," Melanie added.

Gavin nodded toward his wife, nearly cooing over her. "Marriage is about working through the difficult times, right?"

She couldn't help but note the similarity to what Booth had said in the car, but it was out of context coming from this couple. Brennan peeked at Booth, wondering what his instincts were telling him. Hers had always been weaker, but even she knew something was amiss here.

Booth's low chuckle was striking because it sounded so insincere. "That's so true."

The near mockery of his laugh rasped over her, making the room start to tilt and Brennan felt herself sway a little as Booth rocked the boat. When he glanced at Brennan, drawing her in, she sensed it was a challenge. "Isn't that right?" he goaded her.

Her voice hung up on Booth's cynicism, she couldn't speak. Was this role playing during an interview, or was there a deeper meaning behind his lack of enthusiasm? Brennan shook her head slightly, trying to clear it. Stay focused, she told herself.

Melanie was still speaking, trying to explain why she'd had such a surprising change of heart. "And we just kind of lost each other. I was working too much."

"Yeah, me too. I think we just forgot how much we meant to each other." Gavin shared another loaded glance with his ex-ex- wife.

No. No, this wasn't right. Brennan stared at the two of them, knowing with near absolute certainty that this was impossible. The evidence showed her what kind of relationship these two people had, the nasty words, the blows, the simmering scorn and cruel legal battles.

She couldn't help how very skeptical it sounded. "So you went from assaulting each other to reconciling in a matter of a few days?"

No, Brennan's logical reasoning skills insisted. The conclusion did not follow from the premises.

Trying to move her off this line of questioning, Booth brushed her off. "It's possible, Bones."

"Well, time travel is possible … theoretically." Brennan's mind whirled, synapses firing. There was absolutely no way this couple could reconcile. They were lying. _Lying._

Why would they lie?

Brennan looked at Booth, feeling a gush of alarm when she realized he wasn't seeing it. How could he not see it?

Booth laughed again and spoke in an aside to the couple. "Forgive my partner, she's a bit cynical."

And that sounded so very condescending that Brennan's spine stiffened.

"While Agent Booth can be a bit idealistic," she growled through gently gritted teeth and a forced smile.

The contradiction was not lost on her. Booth's insincerity about marriages working out had plunged her into an alternate universe where _she_ detected lies and hoped that love prevailed, and he missed blatant lies and knew with absolute certainty that love doesn't last. They had somehow reversed their roles and she didn't know what any of it meant.

And then Melanie dropped her bombshell.

"We're going to have a baby, so perhaps that makes it easier to understand."

And it did, but not in the way Melanie was hoping.

Was having a baby a reason to stay with someone you didn't love? Memories streaked through her as flashes of light, fast, sparking hot, jolts of recollection coursing through synapses and firing the nerves of her body into arousal and preparation. Evidence converged on her in a kinetic surge, briefly short-circuiting her in an electric glut of memory and information that she had spent eight years gathering.

Lines, he won't get involved with someone he works with, but he got involved with Cam.  
All the things he didn't tell her. All the times she'd offered him pieces of herself and got nothing in return.  
Not telling her he was dead. She walked in darkness for two weeks and all he said in apology was he left it to a faceless bureaucrat to decide if she should be told or not.  
"Cam is a friend." "What am I, Booth?" And he didn't answer. She was only a partner.  
"I'm not like your father. I would never leave my child."  
Proposing because Rebecca was pregnant.  
"If I'm going to be a father, I have to _be_ a father."  
"I've gotta move on."  
"I love Hannah, and she is not a consolation prize." And he proposed to Hannah.  
"I'm not going to propose." Even though she was pregnant.  
"I love you. I'm not just with you because of the baby." But he didn't say it back to her, he just went to get the car.

_No, no, no._ The circuit closed and her cardiac sinus rhythm stumbled. Brennan's heart seized and shuddered, blood flow halting and angina rippling through her chest and arms. Sweat broke out over her forehead, her palms. For one terrifying moment, she actually feared she might faint.

Gavin upheld Melanie's explanation with a wry little grin. "Yeah, a child sort of puts things into perspective."

"And Gavin is an architect, as you know, and he's designing us a new place with a detached playhouse for the baby."

The conversation was going on without her. Brennan drew a deep breath, willing her hands to steady and her heart to resume its task of keeping her alive, as if being so abruptly short-circuited offered no excuse to succumb to grief or distraction. She had a job to do, and this couple demanded her full attention. Without quite knowing how, she knew they were lying; and the reason they would lie must be ascertained.

"It was kind of like Bartlett was giving us a second chance. I really wanted to show him the new house I'm designing for us," Gavin rambled on.

Melanie simpered, "We're calling it our 'second act' house."

Booth would never abandon his child. He was a responsible man who honored his commitments. In that, he never changed or wavered. It was Christine that kept him close.

Tempe never went away, she only drove others away. Her father still was flaky and disappeared for long stretches of time. Russ stayed away.

Brennan knew who the consolation prize was.

People don't change.

Hodgins was still King of the Lab. Angela was still a flighty artist with a flair for the dramatic. Cam was still no-nonsense and cynical.

No, not now. She had to get out of here. With all the dwindling energy that remained available to her, Brennan leveled another skeptical glare at the woman she didn't believe. "So … all the threats against your husband, against Bartlett, those are no longer a part of you?"

"People change," Gavin shrugged.

No, they don't.

"I can't change," she'd cried to Booth that night. She needed to be sure, and this level of uncertainty was terrifying.

She hadn't changed.

Melanie's sharp eyes narrowed on Brennan, as if daring her. "If you don't believe that, then I feel sorry for you."

~Q~

"I need to go back to the lab," she told him the moment they made it back outside.

"What's the rush?"

_I need to think. I need to work._ Her thoughts buzzed erratically in the confines of her skull like disturbed hornets, diving to sting her over and over again. She needed the calm, sterile atmosphere of the lab, the familiar algorithms of cataloging evidence and logical inquiry. _I need to be alone._

"They're lying," Brennan stated baldly.

Booth hastened his stride, catching up to her and shooting her a quizzical glance. "Why do you say that?"

"You read their file," she reminded him. "How can you not see that those two people reconciling to that extent is no more likely than time travel?"

He glared at her rather pointedly. "They're having a baby together. That changes things."

"No it doesn't." Brennan looked away from him, blinking back tears and struggling for control. Part of her wanted to run and disappear into Limbo so she didn't have to face it. Yet the driven, rational side of her, the part that always needed answers, simply had to know. "Would you stay with someone you didn't love just because they were having your baby?"

Booth stood very still, assessing her. "Maybe."

The shattering she heard was the sound of her own heart. It roared in her ears, an eternal rain of broken, sparkling glass falling around her. Somehow she nodded. Somehow she turned and walked the remaining few steps to the SUV. Light-headed, she steadied herself against the door for a moment and marveled that hearts could break after all. And it didn't hurt as much as she expected it to, probably because the epiphany inside had already destroyed her.

~Q~

Author's Question: Is this what you were expecting, or were you surprised? I'd love to hear from you. :)

Also, for those who don't like dwelling in a place of deep despair, there is light coming soon.


	10. Most Relationships End Badly

Long Author's Note (Sorry!):First, I wasn't sure if this chapter would be ready for updating or not, so I didn't promise a second update for this weekend. Fortunately, I did get this edited and the next chapter is coming along so fast that I know I'll be able to complete it by next weekend. Also, I'm pushing to finish this whole story within the next 4 weeks because I want to be able to focus on finals.

Plus, I don't like leaving people hanging when a story is getting dark and intense.

Finally, before we get started on the next few chapters, it's really important that you keep in mind the following point: Booth is NOT the 'bad guy' here. Thanks to the discussion and debate I've been carrying on with DorothyOz behind the writing of this story, I've hopefully portrayed Booth as sympathetically as possible while still being viewed through Brennan's filter.

For just a moment, however, let's take that filter off. Review their final conversation from the previous chapter the way Booth would have heard it:

~Q~

"I need to go back to the lab," she told him the moment they made it back outside.

"What's the rush?"

"They're lying," Brennan stated baldly.

Booth hastened his stride, catching up to her and shooting her a quizzical glance. "Why do you say that?"

"You read their file," she reminded him. "How can you not see that those two people reconciling to that extent is no more likely than time travel?"

He glared at her rather pointedly. "They're having a baby together. That changes things."

"No it doesn't." Brennan looked away from him. "Would you stay with someone you didn't love just because they were having your baby?"

Booth stood very still, assessing her. "Maybe."

~Q~

There's an entirely different and terrifying message there: it sounds like Brennan is preparing to leave again. Booth doesn't know what to think and he's scared, too.

We're putting Brennan's filter back on now, but please forgive poor Booth for having his own filter and his own fears to work through.

The saying goes that the darkest hour is just before dawn. Dawn is arriving soon, but first we have to get through the night.

~Q~

**Chapter Ten**

_"Most Relationships End Badly." _

The only solace she could carve out for herself was twenty minutes alone in her office when she slipped through the door while no one was looking. Brennan sank down onto her sofa and let her eyes rest on the shelves full of artifacts behind her desk. Each object was a tangible reminder of places she'd been, lost peoples she had given voices to. She gazed at a Mayan jade figure she'd brought back from a site near Plan de Sanchez in Guatemala.

The last time a relationship had fallen apart this badly (Peter yelling that she was a cold robot who was great at sex and terrible at everything else), she'd gone to Guatemala for two months and brought this small jade object back with her. Booth had sent a Homeland Security agent to kidnap her for him at the airport, thus setting everything into motion that had brought her to this moment.

_Do you believe in fate?_

Brennan squeezed her eyes closed, wavering between belief and doubt. Cynicism and hope.

Rooted here, she could not leave; yet the artifact called to her, whispered of the people who had created it, and their descendants that she'd labored for two months in the humid earth to restore. Whole Mayan villages had been destroyed by the Guatemalan government during the 1980s, with one of the worst acts of genocide taking place in and around Plan de Sanchez. Brennan had formed part of the forensic recovery effort undertaken at the behest of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The instinct to throw some clothing into a canvas bag and flee to … anywhere … rattled loosely in her head. Just go. Get away. Be alone. She'd been alone all her life and despite the pangs of loneliness, there was no pain in solitude. The pain always came before, and solitude offered the healing balm.

It beckoned to her now, the glimmer of silence and soft, sepia mud. The hard lines of bones carefully extracted, people who needed help and yet couldn't hurt. She closed her eyes, dropping her head to the back of her sofa and placing herself at the dig site near Plan de Sanchez.

The bones had started to come forth after only two days of careful excavation. She would kneel on the planks that crossed the trench, keeping herself out of the grave so as not to disturb the context. In the summer of 2005, the first full recovery had been a woman, her arms wrapped tightly across a tiny skeleton that by its placement could only have belonged to a near term fetus. People like that woman needed her skill. Brennan felt another crush in her throat, guilt over her long absence from human rights work identifying victims of genocide. She held the delicate bones of that small baby in her memory, didn't have any difficulty at all imagining the mother's grief at the realization that her baby would never be born into the light.

And in reply, the burning sting of letdown fired in her chest, tingling her nipples. Brennan lifted her head sharply, arms clasping over her sympathetic breasts as she realized it was impossible to think of murdered babies and not think of Christine. Tears blurred again, because Christine needed her and escape to anywhere other than the daycare was impossible. She couldn't run away anymore; with a baby and a partner she had to remain, no matter how painful.

"Dr. Brennan?"

The soft voice interrupted her, made her arms tighten further as she attempted to pinch off the flow of milk. Brennan sat up, schooling her expression into calm indifference.

"Yes, Mr. Abernathy?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Ma'am, but I've been going over the injury pattern like you requested, and we've developed a scenario."

Brennan stood, meeting his eyes boldly as she dropped her arms. Lactating was a normal biological function, there was no reason to be ashamed. "I have to check on Christine. I'll meet you in Angela's office when I return."

~Q~

Spending the few minutes with Christine helped center her. As her daughter nursed, looking up at her with the wide, mysterious gaze of the infant, Brennan found herself wondering what Christine was thinking behind those silent eyes. Tiny fingers curled around hers, and the gently rhythmic tugging as her baby nursed worked in tandem with Christine's scent and touch to initiate a calming release of oxytocin. Long called the bonding hormone, oxytocin was released during sexual arousal and orgasm, birth, and while nursing.

It soothed her, connected her, reduced the cortisol that had dominated her much of the day. Knowing exactly what caused the warm feelings of love to spread through her chest didn't lessen its power. If anything, it grew bolder when Brennan deliberately opened her mind to its influence and let her thoughts wander back to Booth. The oxytocin warmth drifted around the tiny fractured pieces of her heart, tugging the bits back into place and reassembling them in much the same way Brennan worked for hours to restore a shattered skull. Oxytocin glue, much stronger than methyl methacrylate.

"I'll never leave you," Brennan promised Christine tenderly. "I won't leave your daddy, either. Never again."

She felt another pulse of fear, of grief, of doubt—because cortisol doesn't subside without a fight and she had no assurance he wouldn't be the one to walk away—but pushed it all back with a smile for her daughter. "We must never rush to judgment before all of the evidence is in. I was too hasty today. Your dad is right, having a baby together does change things. I won't give up."

Then she laughed a little, remembering something her own father had told her once. "Brennans don't fail at anything."

~Q~

Once Brennan arrived, Angela ran the simulation that she had designed with Finn Abernathy's catalog of damage to Bartlett's bones. A cartoonish staircase stretched impossibly tall, extending well beyond the fifteen stories permitted by DC building codes.

Watching Brennan carefully, her brows quirked with a trace of amusement, Angela pushed the button that began the simulation. "Okay, so this is the victim falling down a flight of stairs."

The stiff, simulated figure flipped end-over-teakettle at least five times before Brennan scoffed and glared at Abernathy. "That's absurd!"

Finn nodded sheepishly but stood his ground. "Look, I know this looks a mite strange, but I swear _this_ is the only scenario that explains all horizontal anterior and posterior injuries."

She frowned, arms crossed impatiently. "What about the compression fractures to the long bones?"

"Oh, it's coming," Angela promised sardonically.

True to her word, the body tumbled off the long staircase into a five-hundred foot free-fall, straight down the side of a cliff and ended landing feet first at the bottom.

After a disbelieving snort, Brennan unleashed the well-earned derision this impossible scenario deserved. "Congratulations, Mr. Abernathy. You have successfully reconstructed the death of Wile E. Coyote."

Finn dropped his head, acknowledging the reprimand as something he had certainly expected, yet his amused little grin showed how unconcerned he really was. Had Brennan truly been displeased, she'd have dealt him a verbal evisceration and then handed him a bucket so he could clean up the mess.

"Wow, honey!" Angela enthused, teasing her friend. "That was a very impressive pop cultural reference."

"Christine and I may have watched a few cartoons while I was away."

Finn chuckled. "I have to say, Ma'am, I've sure missed working with you."

Vaguely uncomfortable, Brennan turned to the x-rays and photographs in Bartlett's file, replying with her typical immodesty. "I imagine you have."

"Although I'm sure Agent Booth has missed you a lot more," he added, perhaps a bit unwisely.

Brennan stiffened, her heart seizing at the renewal of agitation his innocent comment caused. The oxytocin glue was still setting, too fragile to be disturbed. She sharply reminded her intern of his place, which was not to make observations about her personal life. "Is this helping the case, Mr. Abernathy?"

Then she chastised herself, because she could hardly blame her intern when she'd just overstepped her own boundaries a moment ago as well. Mentioning being away had left the door wide open and she couldn't blame him for thinking she was fine with him stepping over the threshold.

Realizing he'd gotten a bit too familiar, Finn backed off gracefully. "No, ma'am. I'm just appreciating the Good Lord's work getting you back."

Another bolt of anger jolted through her, radiating out from under her skin because the notion of God having any influence on her, of being the cause of the horrible things that had happened to her, was infuriating. God had never had anything to do with her. God had never saved her, and God had played no part in her getting herself back.

"If God was involved in our lives, these cases wouldn't be so hard to solve." My parents wouldn't have left; Russ would have stayed. I wouldn't have the scars or know what it's like to be locked in the dark three different ways. There wouldn't even be any murders, she thought furiously. She and Booth would never have met. The thought splintered her composure a bit further. "_Do you believe in fate?_"

_I want to,_ she realized. _I want to believe it, but I can't—it's too irrational._

"I'm not so sure about that," Finn disagreed mildly. He met her fierce gaze with steady courage, not wavering in either his faith or his resolve, and she respected him all the more for it. Few of her interns had the nerve to dispute with her openly. "Without a challenge, you wouldn't know how brilliant you are."

Inexplicably, she was choking up again. Brennan cursed her near-constant emotional instability today, wondering how she was supposed to function when every little thing made her tear up like she was living in a perpetual Hallmark moment. Yet what Finn had said, that she would learn how brilliant she was if she met the challenge … it restored hope. Brennans don't fail; she'd never gotten a B in her life.

Her fragile, newly mended heart throbbed slightly, testing its strength and resolve. She would reach out to Booth soon, she would. But first, other responsibilities and challenges must be met.

Keeping her attention resolutely on the file in her hand, she willed her emotions to retreat so she could focus on the pattern of bone damage. Here was a challenge that must be addressed. Richard Bartlett deserved justice, answers. The Carmichael's mysterious prevarication might yet be a factor. And the combination of blunt force impacts with compression fractures, if they could ever posit the correct scenario to explain them, might reveal the place where Bartlett had died.

Respecting Brennan's need for privacy, Finn turned to Angela with a sudden insight. "What if both the stairs and the steep fall happened at the same time?"

Confused and unable to envision the idea at all, Angela frowned. "Excuse me?"

Brennan regarded her protégé with even greater respect. Finn was young and he was brilliant; just as he'd suggested, the challenge showed her how brilliant he was. He'd just challenged her about Booth. Then only a moment later about faith—which she most assuredly didn't have—but then somewhere she'd read that faith was merely hope coupled with belief. She was hope and Booth was faith, together they made belief.

Her heart pulsed again, stronger, sure, steady.

Now Finn was challenging her again, proposing a possibility that was well worth considering.

Lifting her head, Brennan began running the scenario in her own mind as well. As the required distance, speed and trajectory necessary to cause the observed injury patterns passed through her internal calculator, realization dawned and the light of incipient discovery flared in her eyes. "Mr. Abernathy may be onto something."

The younger man squinted at the large monitor, envisioning what Brennan saw so clearly emerging in her mind's eye. "The bones tell us that the victim suffered an extremely steep fall."

The idea was gelling rapidly. She spoke quickly as it formed, seeing the stairs stretch and elongate, seeing their angle steepen in front of her. "He had to have been falling at a rate of at least 50 miles per hour to sustain the compression injuries." That meant more than five stories.

"He also sustained cascading horizontal injuries to the front and back of his body," Finn contributed.

Angela was an artist, well used to spatial thinking. She imagined banging front and back against stairs while also falling fast, and only one possibility came to mind. "So you're saying, it's almost as if he fell down a … an almost vertical staircase."

Tweaking the variables in her programmed scenario, Angela watched her ordinary staircase warp into something resembling a ladder, stretched straight up to a height of over one thousand feet. "Which, of course, doesn't exist."

Brennan gazed at the impossible staircase Angela had created. Front and back. Two sides. Back and forth. Not tumbling, falling down and banging front and back all the way to the bottom…. Laundry chute? Mail chute? Construction waste disposal chute. Her eyes lit up. "I know what happened."

~Q~

"Okay, are you sure about this?" Booth asked once she'd explained where the victim had fallen.

"It seems like the most reasonable explanation." They were back together in the SUV, heading for Bartlett's office building. Brennan's hypothesis that Bartlett had been thrown down the construction waste disposal chute needed evidentiary confirmation.

He grinned brightly. "This is good stuff! I mean, this means we can wrap up this case and have a nice weekend."

"I was going to take Christine to the children's museum." The moment the final 'mmm' had passed her lips, Brennan sensed the change, as if the barometric pressure in the car had hopped on an elevator and was descending rapidly into the bowels of the earth. Inwardly, she was almost as stunned as Booth appeared to be. Had she actually meant to say that, to cut him out? Brennan realized with shock that she wasn't sure.

He spoke dangerously, clarifying just exactly what she'd meant. "_You_ were?"

There was still time to backpedal. She could pretend it was a subconscious error, a holdover from three months apart. Part of her—the rational part that she always heeded—was hissing at her to rectify this immediately. But there was another side, the emotional side, that pressed her forward because she couldn't stand the suspense any longer and Hodgins's advice throbbed painfully in her head. _"Make him tell you."_

_"Having a baby together does change things. I won't give up."_

In as much time as it took for Booth to pause and give her the chance to avoid the impending quarrel, Brennan followed her heart and charted a course for confrontation. _Make him tell you. Make him. Force it out._ Her reply to Booth, brisk as ever, ripped the lid off Pandora's box. "Yes."

She didn't know what she would find inside, but already there was electricity crackling in the air, signaling the approaching storm. Her pulse accelerated in dread as she braced herself.

To Booth's credit, he attempted to negotiate, to make the point that Brennan had somehow forgotten him in her equation. "Well, I was thinking that maybe we could, you know, go to the carousel. Give her another chance."

Yet his effort was lost in the torrent of fear, frustration and doubt that poured out of Pandora's box when he picked the wrong thing to suggest. She had opened the box but hadn't expected to be swept up so quickly in the flood that followed.

Because he kept questioning her about the one thing she knew. Why didn't he let the damn carousel go? Christine was a baby, only a few months old. She wasn't old enough to appreciate the movement or the noise and in fact had been frightened by it. Brennan had been there, had witnessed it. She knew this, but he kept pushing as if she were an unreliable witness who would change her story once he caught her out in a lie.

Brennan clenched her hands as the winds of fury began to whistle between them. He didn't believe her. He just had to see it for himself, and Christine was going to be scared all over again. "Why? I told you she didn't like it."

Booth was getting frustrated. "I know. But maybe it'll be different, you know, now that her _dad_ is there."

All she heard was criticism, recrimination, doubt. _"You slept with Christine under a bridge?"_ He was questioning her ability as a mother, her devotion, her judgment. He didn't trust her. It didn't help that she often questioned herself: hearing the skepticism in Booth brought the first blinding flash of lightening, the roar of wind scouring out rapprochement and an answering boom of fear.

If he doubted she could take good care of Christine, would he try to take Christine away? Would he leave?

"Are you saying that I didn't know how to take care of our daughter?" Frightened and defensive, she struggled to maintain her composure. Constriction squeezed her airways tight, closed up her throat and nose, brought stinging tears to her eyes and a painful knot in her larynx. Already this confrontation was spinning out of control and it was impossible to determine where it might lead them.

She'd caught him off guard. "What?! Wait a second, no!"

Barely holding back a sob, she trembled. "It wasn't easy out there, Booth."

She had tried to tell him, so many times but he wouldn't listen. Every moment, every memory, she'd wanted to share it with him and every time she began he would stop her. Shut her words off—with kisses, with insults, with rolling eyes or heaving sighs. He wouldn't let her speak of it and the weight of all that fear, that torment, pressed down on her. Crushed her. Now he implied she'd harmed Christine, that she wasn't enough to protect her and she felt herself splintering into shards of wounded rage and betrayed alarm.

The tempest raged unchecked. Booth's anger boiled over at last, blasting her with contempt and unexpected fury that abraded viciously and left her raw.

"Oh, here we go again!"

Shocked at the feeling of raw hurt, Brennan's mind stumbled over his words in disbelief. "What!"

"What do you mean, what. You're not _out there_ anymore, Bones. Okay? You're back. And I'm part of your life, remember?"

Of course he was a part of her life. He was the whole of her life. Adrenaline pulsed through her chest, her hands and feet, making her feel nauseated and anxious. She hadn't eaten all day because of him. She couldn't work without someone asking about Booth and the tension between them. Glances of pity had followed her everywhere, as well as whispers and speculation. She couldn't go home but he would be there. She couldn't even go into her office without him lurking unseen.

Booth consumed every corner of her life and there was no escaping that fact. Underneath all of that, there was the looming threat of failure, the thought of losing everything because she couldn't do this one thing that mattered so much.

She'd known this, two years ago when he'd begged her to give them a chance. _"I can't change,"_ she'd sobbed and here was the proof. But in a moment of weakness she'd confessed her wish that it could be different. In an unguarded moment they'd come together and created a child. In a rare flight of fancy, she'd made a home with him and thought that maybe Booth was the exception.

He was every part of her life, the life that was shattering into pieces right before her eyes.

"It's hard to forget," she muttered furiously. She couldn't forget: she'd been nothing but agitated and nervous this whole day, all her anxiety caused by _his_ simmering unhappiness. Caused by her fear that he was too angry and hadn't forgiven her. That he wouldn't forgive. That he would leave. That he would take everything away from her.

He wouldn't talk to her and he wouldn't let her talk. He pushed her away, left her alone. It was impossible to ignore how much pain he could cause her. It was impossible not to fear how easily he could destroy her just by walking away. She was barely holding herself together as it was.

"Okay, what is that supposed to mean?" he roared.

_Never let them see you cry._

Brennan suddenly clamped down on her lips, sensing she would say the wrong thing entirely. She needed to regroup. She retreated, suddenly realizing she wasn't capable of handling this while they were driving back to a crime scene. Technically, they were 'at work' and her timing was off yet again. "I'm not getting into this now. You're angry."

Furious now that she had begun shutting down, Booth bellowed out his rage. The lid was off and Pandora's gift raged over both of them. "Of course I'm angry! Huh? Wouldn't you be angry? I tried to understand you but it's like you wish you were still out there!"

Shocked, horrified, bewildered, Brennan was hardly able to respond. "Don't be absurd."

How could he say that? How could he think it?

"Oh, God," Booth snarled, venom spurting out with every word. "Maybe you should just try to see things from my point of view, how _I'm_ seeing things. 'Cause it ain't pretty _he__re_. From what I'm seeing, I'm getting shut out all the time."

Shutting him out? Confusion and fear danced under her skin, tapping out a rhythm that pushed breath out of her lungs. He was shutting _her_ out, never talking, never telling. _I don't__ understand, I can't do this. _Panic edged closer, threatening her control. Out of ancient habit, Brennan erected a desperate mask of calm and reason but couldn't hide the trembling in her voice.

"I'm not going to fight. We'll talk later when you are capable of being rational."

When he started smacking the steering wheel, his face contorting, her terror invaded the entirety of her mind, swamping her, surrounding her with the past. His explosion of rage initiated flickering flashes of Leroy Erickson's screaming face, the whip, being dragged, being shoved into the dark.

She gasped, all the color bleached from her face and all sense of place and time evaporating from her mind. Brennan briefly lost contact with her surroundings, immersed in the past, in fear that never really went away. She didn't even know how she got into the elevator or how much time had elapsed before awareness returned.

Booth's volume had increased, his anger blasting her in fire and fury while she was trapped with it in the confined space of a mid-rise elevator car.

She only wanted to escape, to find some quiet place to rest her mind and let these ragged feelings purge themselves. She had been angry, but that was lost in the torrent of Booth's unexpected rage. Fear was a more primal, and much stronger foe. Fear trumped everything. Proliferating secretions of cortisol and adrenalin initiated hot tingles in her fingertips and erratic pounding under her sternum. The fight or flight instinct rippled through her limbs, jamming up her reason like logs piling into a narrow creek and stopping the flow of coherent thought to a trickle.

The only rational idea she had left was, _Not now. I can't do this now._

She wanted to plead with him, but letting him see how scared she was could not be an option. _Never let them see you scared. Never let them see you cry. Never let them see what they can do to you…._ The ancient mantra rose up from the ashes of her past, reminding her how to survive. Brennan reached again, almost desperately, for the mask of control, the façade of a hard-set jaw and sparking eyes to conceal her absolute need for flight.

She wanted to escape. If only they weren't in an elevator.

The doors opened onto the 14th floor and she bolted.

Booth trotted behind her, spitting venom. "You know you can't just cut me off like that because you're scared to _fight_!"

_Never let them see, never let them see,_ the mantra repeated in tandem with her flying footfalls. _Don't let him see…._ Brennan's face somehow stretched itself into a phony smile, falsely polite. Falsely in control. "I am not engaging, Booth."

Laughing spitefully, he sneered. "Oh-ho. That's it. Sure. Just run away. Just hide behind that big brain of yours to escape all the _messiness_."

_"You think you're smarter than me, huh? You with your big brain!"_

Pain and shock added to the claxon alarms ringing throughout her entire body. Brennan sucked in a shattered breath, trying not to let his verbal blow make her stumble. He knew where to hit. He knew how to hurt—he was doing it on purpose. _I didn't mean to run away. I didn't **want** to!_ Tears snarled in her throat, scorched her eyes and made her cheeks burn. _Don't let him see! _That old alert system was churning full-tilt, helping her clamp down the inner chaos just barely.

It took every speck of self-possession to hide her turmoil. Success was only partial, just enough to assert weakly, "Acting like an adult is not hiding."

"Well, you know what?" he hissed. "You are going to have to face it sooner or later."

A memory spiked in her consciousness, thrusting itself upon her at the similar face value of his words.

_"You have to talk about it," the psychiatrist had asserted. "Feelings like this don't just disappear. Talking about it is the only way to get past it."_

_"No," she'd said._

_"Tell me what you were feeling in the trunk. Were you afraid?"_

_"No!"_

_"You have to face it sooner or later, Temperance."_

**_No!_**Her mind screamed. _No. I won't face it! It's gone, it's past. I won't relive it again, not any of it. _Full-blown panic exploded as she felt backed into the proverbial corner. Who was he to tell her what she had to face? What the hell did he know of what she had faced already? Too much pain for 20 lifetimes, and she wasn't even half finished with her life yet.

Why did everyone push her to talk about things? She couldn't talk. She couldn't speak of it. Booth had known, somehow he'd always known. He didn't speak of his, either.

But he was trying to make her. Booth, long her sanctuary and her champion, was the tormenting presence she couldn't escape. Booth, long the oasis she had longed for, was taking down his trees and siphoning the water hole dry. He was going to leave. All this hurt, as he ripped up the shade and shelter, was just his way of clearing a path. He was leaving, but still insisted on telling her how to handle these nightmares and losses she couldn't bear.

Hiding a sob behind her anger, Brennan whirled and snapped in two. The rage he'd been trying to goad out of her finally found its expression as she lashed out and drove him back. "Do _not_ tell me how to live! We are not married. We are both free agents. And I've done _just fine_ on my own!"

_So leave already,_ her wounded heart cried. _Just go. Because you don't love me and there's nothing forcing you to stay. Leave me like everyone else has. Just go…._

The pain in her chest took her breath away—could hearts actually tear themselves in two?

"Oh fine!" Booth was still chasing after her, still unsatisfied.

Almost running, her voice rushed out high pitched and strident. It wasn't anger, it was fear. "Fine!"

Sputtering, Booth roared out an even nastier "Fine!"

_Leave me alone, leave me alone,_ her inner thoughts dashed themselves against a wall of fear and pain. _I need him to leave me alone right now. What if he leaves me alone? What if he leaves….?_

She realized she was so confused that she was begging for two different things at once: for him to leave and for him to stay. Another sob tried to work its way out of her throat.

_Why does this keep happening? What's wrong with me...?! _

~Q~

Author's Note: See that thin white line in the east? Dawn is approaching. It's going to get brighter soon. And just so you know, I prefer sunny mornings. ;)

~Q~

Plan de Sanchez is a real place in Guatemala. During the Guatemalan civil war in the 1980s, the Guatemalan army acted on orders from the government and massacred entire Mayan villages that had been accused of offering aid to the leftist guerrilla forces that were fighting the government. Women and children were rounded up to be shot and dumped into wells, or their bodies were burned and dumped into mass graves. At Plan de Sanchez, reports from survivors indicated that over 250 people were murdered, but as of 2005 no more than 100 bodies had been found and confirmed. The reason for this low rate of recovery probably stems from the fact that entire families were destroyed and buried, with no witnesses to report them missing or help locate the grave.


	11. Happiness Contingent upon Another

Disclaimer: Quite simple, really: Not mine.

Trigger Warning: This chapter is delving a little deeper into Brennan's history of abuse. It's not graphic, but the description might bother some who are sensitive to themes of assault and violence.

Rating Change: This chapter is a soft M because of a sex scene towards the end.

Author's Note:First, thank you to everyone who is watching this, leaving reviews or even just reading it and (hopefully) enjoying the story. I do try to personally thank every reviewer who is signed in. If you aren't getting a note from me, know that it's because I haven't figured out how to track people down (or if I'm supposed to). I'm still new to this fanfiction thing. :D I appreciate your words very much, every one of you.

Getting back to business, this is a turning point in the story, with everything breaking out into the open and Brennan making an essential decision.

**Chapter Eleven**

_"Is it worth it, to have your happiness so contingent on another human being?"  
_

The foreman they'd met earlier in the day came running toward them, bewildered by the ruckus. "Is everything okay here?"

"No," Brennan answered, the single word torn out of her as she pulled her breathing back under control. Nothing was okay, most especially her own precarious control. She couldn't let anyone see how shaken she was, how disorganized. Entropy was all well and good for the universe and it certainly explained most crime scenes, but it was unacceptable for a scientist to operate under its tenets. Science defied entropy, enforced order and method in its effort to find meaning in the chaos.

If there was no meaning, then there was no reason to go on. Taming the entropy of her own life was how Temperance Brennan had found the strength to survive and science had taught her how to tame it. Science had ever been her salvation.

Still furious, Booth barked out his agreement that things weren't okay. "No!"

Finally, they had that settled, at least. Nothing was okay. Brennan chanced a look at Booth, saw him breathing heavily but his eyes were on hers, too, and fierce and angry. Nothing was okay, and she felt relieved that he had finally admitted it.

They needed to finish what she'd started but couldn't continue now, and for that mercy Brennan was unspeakably grateful because she needed time to process what had just been revealed. Taking refuge in science and the presence of the foreman, she set the Alternate Light Source Polilight to 415 nanometers and slipped it over her head. There was something concrete she could know right now, something particular she could do. "I need to get to your construction chute."

"Wait a minute now," he protested. "That's a very dangerous area. I can't let you go back there."

Fumbling awkwardly because of his own overdose of adrenaline , Booth finally retrieved and flashed his badge. "FBI. _Angry _FBI!"

Brennan darted ahead, using the distraction to escape.

"Hey! I'm not supposed to let anybody—hey!" The foreman's head whipped from the badge to Brennan. "Hey! Where are you going?"

As she approached the chute, Brennan focused all of her energy on what she could see. The outside distraction helped her bury the ragged emotions and put her professionalism back in charge. Nothing but reason, nothing but method and step-by-step, observe and record. Understanding and interpretation would come later.

The chute was right there, a ridged tunnel that dropped over the edge of the penthouse balcony to the street below, where debris was deposited into a large dumpster. Sensing Booth arriving behind her, she started explaining what she could see. "Whoever killed Richard Bartlett could have easily moved the body out here any time after six without being seen. There's lipping on each of the stacked cans, evenly spaced like stairs. This chute could definitely have created the damage found on the body."

The fall would have been swift and nearly vertical, with the body knocking back and forth all the way down. Fully intent on finding evidence now, Brennan moved a crate into place and stepped up on it while Booth watched in confusion.

"I need to take a closer look," she explained.

"Wait!" The foreman stepped forward to stop her. "Now, this is my site. I'm responsible for it. You can't go in there."

Booth shook his head and glared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "He's right. You can't just go rappelling down some garbage chute!"

If she hadn't bitten her tongue in fury just then, Brennan knew her mandible would have unhinged itself. Booth was agreeing with a suspect?! He was telling her she couldn't retrieve evidence? He was telling her she couldn't do her job?!

A crack of outrage drew her taut. What was it with men telling her no, telling her what she couldn't do or couldn't be? Brennan lifted her chin, unwilling to let anyone stop her. She didn't let the Chinese army keep her out of Tibet, she didn't let El Salvadoran thugs scare her away, nor did she ever let Guatemalan soldiers with guns stop her from digging for the truth. She had never let Booth's overprotective nature stop her from going where she needed to get her job done. This foreman wasn't her father, she could damn well do as she needed to solve this murder, too. Damn them all.

"He could be the murderer, Booth!"

She saw him glancing at the foreman in surprise; it looked liked the idea hadn't even occurred to him.

Brennan took in the filthy chute, streaked in dirt and something resembling spatters of chocolate syrup, then her partner who wasn't listening to her. It was like in the beginning, when they weren't partners yet and he didn't believe in her. She felt again the splintering of them, the separation yawing wider, the fuzziness of Booth as he drifted further way.

"He already admitted that Bartlett was suing him," Brennan reminded Booth. "Just … hold my feet."

Booth's jaw clenched in reaction to the imperious command she'd given him after the argument they'd begun and hadn't resolved. He crossed his arms and leaned against the chute. "No."

He really was withdrawing. Brennan felt cold, a bitter chill blowing through her when Booth stepped back and ended their partnership. Everything was falling apart, even the work they did together. She was alone in this. Their gazes caught on a challenge, his daring her to … what? Beg for his help? Give up?

She wouldn't let her partner dictate her life to her, nor her job. She would face her demons when and how she chose, and she would collect evidence on her own if that was the choice he left her.

"Fine! Then as previously stated, I will act as the free agent that I am." _I don't need him to help me with this,_ she assured herself. _I don't._

Swallowing thickly, she turned to the chute and looked down into the abyss. Brennan adjusted her Polilight headlamp and leaned over, tilting her head to sweep the interior of the chute with the bluish light. As she eased herself forward, she heard the foreman's voice bounce off the plastic tube when he absolved himself of responsibility for her recklessness.

"I'm not going to stick around and watch her kill herself!"

_I'm not being reckless,_ she thought mutinously. She was being thorough. If no one went in there, then a murder would go unsolved.

"One move and I'll shoot you!" Booth snapped. Then suddenly he was leaping forward as he noticed that Brennan had begun to lean in too far. "Whoa! Bones!"

She felt his steady hands clutching at her legs, providing a counterweight that held her suspended ten stories in the air. "No!" He gasped, fear evident as he became the only thing that preserved her.

"Don't drop me." All of her confidence returned with his touch, with the promise that Booth would never let her fall. Easing herself lower, hands braced, Brennan flashed the Polilight deeper into the tube.

"I won't," he promised.

The Polilight flared over multiple splotches, showing her the protein remnants of blood or bodily fluids. "I see blood and tissue, Booth."

"What?" She could hear the strain in his voice, the tension in his arms as he held her.

"This is where he died."

~Q~

They were silent in the car, both staring straight ahead and finding it impossible to look at the person beside them. Brennan's hands were clasped together tightly, an unusually nervous gesture that betrayed the serene mask she wore. Booth wasn't speaking, his visage bleak, his jaw harsh and jutting.

It was all a mess, her guilt and tangled fears, and now his anger and fears were added to the mix. He thought she was cutting him out, that she wanted to be alone again. How she had given him that impression was something Brennan needed to understand, but every effort at analysis was blocked by chaos. A flock of darting thoughts skimmed in and out of her head, chasing ideas like swallows at dusk.

When he pulled into a parking space at the Jeffersonian, Brennan reached for the door. She needed to be alone and hoped he would let her have it.

"We need to talk," he said quietly.

Brennan bit her lip, feeling still the fear and knew she wasn't ready. Everything would come out wrong again, unless she took time to think, to analyze what he'd yelled at her and what their argument meant. It was too complex to work out quickly in a car, when she was still breathless from the confrontation that had happened less than an hour ago.

"Not now." She opened the door and jumped out, walking away.

Behind her, she heard another howl and his fists slamming into the steering wheel. When the other door opened, Brennan hastened her stride.

"Yes, now, damn it!" Booth came after her, reaching for her wrist and jerking her back around.

"Booth." It was a warning. Her eyes flashed, her defenses triggered by the hand on her arm. Only the fact that it was Booth who'd grabbed her held her fists and feet in check, but she was still on high alert.

"You can't do that!" he yelled. "You can't keep running away."

"I'm not running away, I'm returning to work," she defended reasonably. The fear was boiling back up again, so close to ripping yet another lid off.

"Bull shit. What the hell was that?"

Brennan's eyes widened, her pulse accelerating at the raw fury rolling off him, fury directed at her. Her throat clenched tight as instinct warred with what she knew of him. He wouldn't hurt her, but the anger … that blistering hot anger scorched and recalled another time she'd faced such wrath. Wrath that she had provoked then, too.

"I don't know what you mean," she said distantly, and it was only half a fabrication. She was slipping, losing ground, losing her place.

He cursed viciously, jerked her against him so roughly she stumbled. "Stop. Just _stop_."

The blood drained from her face as another deep voice roared over her. Erickson's voice, Booth's hands. She shuddered, tears falling. "No."

"You started this, Temperance." Another jerk on her arm, as if to get her attention.

"I know." Reality was rending in two, past and present converging into one quagmire of confusion. She had started it, the author of her own suffering time and again.

_"Tempe, you gotta come out. Please, Tempe." A soft sob broke in his voice. "I don't know what to do. Please, just talk to me."  
"Wake up." She pinched again. Tempe's furious fingers found fresh meat on her belly. "Wake up…."_

_"Temperance has a history of self abuse, including self-inflicted cutting and bruising. The allegation of abuse against Leroy Erickson is therefore determined to be unfounded."_

_She leaned over, her eyes lifting to tease him. "If we're not working together, we could have sex,"  
"I'll call a cab."  
"You got me drunk to fire me and have sex with me." But __**she'd**__ suggested it, not him._

_"What's it going to take?"  
"Full participation in the case. Not just lab work, everything."  
"Spit in my hand, we're Sully and Mulder."_

_"I don't want to have any regrets."  
"I'm with someone now."_

_"Booth, are you still angry?"_

_Taking Christine and vanishing for three months._

_"I was going to take Christine to the Children's Museum."  
"__**You**__ were."  
"Yes."_

She'd started it, every single time. "I know," she whispered, stricken.

"You made this mess! I'm not letting you escape the consequences." He shook her, frustration and anger pouring out over her like acid.

~Q~

"You started this, Temperance. You made this mess."

"I didn't mean to. The water was too hot!"

"You think you're so damn smart? You think you can use that super-brain to escape the consequences? I'll show you." **_Crack!_** The whip snicked down, breaking the sound barrier and her flesh in an instant. **_Crack! Crack!_** She jerked in reaction, biting her tongue so hard that blood pooled in her mouth. **_Crack!_** Burning agony along the strips he'd flayed open. She knew sitting was going to be impossible for days. **_Crack!_**

"Now when you sit you're going to remember this. Your damn ass will remind you to heed my warnings."

Tempe held still, afraid to move. The seeping blood tickled in contrast to the burning pain in stripes on her exposed backside. Erickson jerked her up, shaking her. Before she could reach for her pants, trying to restore something of her dignity, he had dragged her to the door. She stumbled, legs caught in fabric.

"Where are you taking me?"

He pulled her up, slapping her. "I warned you what would happen," he spat.

"No!" The car? He'd threatened he would, but she'd never really believed he would actually follow through. Shock and terror froze her and she stumbled again. "I'll be good!"

Erickson jerked her arm so hard her body slammed into the doorjamb and her arm wrenched loose as Erickson pulled it forward. The shoulder dislocated, pulling her humerus free of the glenoid cavity. She screamed, the pain shocking and somehow worse than the fire in her backside. Darkness swirled over her, the trunk opening to her like a gaping mouth. She felt herself lifted and thrown, the painful impact, her shoulder screaming and the skin on her bottom raging like licking flames.

Screams surrounded her in the fading light, in the dark as it boomed over her. "I'll be good! Please! I'll be good! Please don't leave! Please!"

~Q~

Screaming sounded loudly, echoing against the concrete parking structure and bouncing back at her. A woman was screaming, crying that she'd be good if only he didn't leave. Her body was shaking, her wrist on fire, the memory of a wrecked shoulder bringing echoes of pain.

Something pushed her backwards and the screaming abruptly stopped. She tripped and fell against a car. Dazed, lifting her eyes, she found Booth's frozen, horrified face dropping from her to his hands, half lifted and opened like claws.

Her breathing was ragged, her mind slowly piecing things together. Her shoulder was fine, and her clothes were still properly in place. Her legs worked. She lifted herself upright carefully, noting that nothing hurt, really. Booth hadn't hurt her, she knew he wouldn't.

Without making a sound, Booth turned and walked away. His hands had straightened fiercely, fingers extended until the tendons vibrated. The SUV door boomed shut and he drove away, leaving Tempe alone next to a car, not imprisoned this time.

~Q~

She walked into the lab on unsteady legs, seeking someplace quiet. Somewhere away from people, questions, confusion. Limbo.

Almost at the door leading down to the silent storage and examination area, Angela caught up to her, catching her arm. "Sweetie, what's wrong?"

Brennan flinched, jerking herself away and stumbling back a step. "Nothing."

Narrowing her eyes, Angela reached for her again and pulled her through the door, down the stairs into the dimmer corridors of Modular Bone Storage. When they'd reached the bottom, she sent two interns scurrying away with an unmistakable glare, waited for the click of the door at the top of the stairs. Only once it fell completely silent did she turn to Brennan. "Tell me what happened."

"I need to be alone." Brennan's eyes darted erratically around the long row of drawers containing thousands of unidentified people, just as lost as she felt.

"We _are_ alone," Angela reassured her gently. "Brennan."

The firm call reached her, broke through the chaos and gave her something to hold.

"What happened?" Angela asked again.

"I … I don't know." Brennan wrapped her arms around herself, trying to halt the trembling as delayed reaction set in. Her teeth were beginning to chatter.

Angela stepped closer, tugging her down onto the floor. "Come on, sit with me."

She obeyed mindlessly, happy for a moment to let someone else make decisions for her. Ordinarily Brennan was always thinking, her restless intellect incapable of being anything other than hyperactive. At the moment, however, a thick fog had rolled in, dampening the sparks and leaving her dull and muzzy. Angela's soothing aura settled beside her, bringing warmth to burn away the fog and pull her back into clarity.

"Was it a flashback?"

The near-psychic guess should have shocked her, but Brennan could only be glad she didn't have to explain. She nodded, resigned to the fact that Angela was the only person who knew she had them. The flashbacks had been far more frequent and disturbing during the first year of their friendship, exacerbated by her abduction and torment in El Salvador. Only Angela knew; there were so many things that only Angela knew.

"What triggered it, Bren?"

"Booth," she whispered, torn over the apparent accusation. "We were arguing." Did that make it better? She closed her eyes, trying to reproduce the moment from memory. He'd grabbed her wrist, pulled her harder than usual—in the past being grabbed had triggered her. It was what he'd said, however, that had tipped her this time. The words were too similar, coupled with action that hurled her back.

She wanted to cry, or maybe to scream, but all she could do was sit and stare blankly ahead while her thoughts skirled around.

Another impossibly prescient question teased meaning out of Brennan's state of shock. "He freaked out, didn't he."

"I … yes." She sighed, ashamed. This was her fault too, because she had pushed and she wasn't in control and things were so messy now it would never be sorted out. "He didn't say anything, he just left."

But he was looking at his hands. Once upon a time he had confided to her how much he feared becoming too angry, letting Parker see the violence he was capable of. _"I lost control. I don't take any pride in that."_ She could still hear him, still see the worry that hunched his shoulders and the shame that dragged along behind. She had told him Parker was lucky to have such a loving, concerned father, and he had been reassured by her faith in him.

_If he thinks he hurt me…._ Brennan felt sick, worrying that her poison was going to hurt him further.

"It's going to be all right," Angela soothed.

She wanted to believe that nearly as much as she longed to put her trust in fate. They stayed silent a few minutes more while Brennan slowed her pulse, stopped sweating, began to realize half the shaking and cold sweat was due to low blood sugar because she hadn't eaten in nearly 24 hours.

"Is this what you meant?" she asked suddenly. Angela's raised brow invited her to continue. "When you said I'd be screaming in the night?"

With a sigh, Angela's arm slipped around her shoulders and pulled her tight. She laughed a little, low and sympathetic. "Yeah. I guess this is what I meant."

"It happened twice today," Brennan admitted slowly. "I lost time in the car. And then again here." She paused, drawing a shaking breath. "The second one, I went all the way back."

Angela nodded, then said carefully, "You need to explain it to Booth. He's going to be freaking out, thinking he caused it. You have to talk to him. Okay?"

"He didn't hurt me."

"He's not going to see it that way, Bren. You need to tell him."

With a resigned sigh, Brennan dug out her phone and sent him a quick message. _I'm sorry. I want to talk. Please call._

~Q~

The trip back up into the heart of the lab felt like climbing out of the dark, out of hidden cars and windowless cells in the Salvadoran jungle. There was a difference of course because she was cleaner and physically uninjured, but the weight of darkness stayed with her all the same.

Hodgins had discovered blood on the nib of the pen used to stab Richard Bartlett. Cam had run DNA tests and hoped to discover whom the blood belonged to, or that they could match it later to a suspect. Her intern was busy with histology samples. Brennan returned to her desk and reviewed x-rays sent to her by the DC Medical Examiner who suspected a young murder victim on her table had a history of child abuse. And since bones never lie, Brennan confirmed the ME's suspicions were correct with a tight knot of anger at the injustice of it all.

Why did adults hurt children they were supposed to take care of? Why did men hurt women? Why did Pelant frame her and force her to leave? Why did any of this happen. There were no answers, only painful questions.

As evening approached, Brennan went for Christine and took her home. She sent another text message to Booth, saw that he'd finally left her one.

_Working late. Don't wait up._

That was it.

The empty house felt cold and dark when she walked in, as if it missed Booth as much as she did. Brennan forced cheerful prattle as she fed and played with Christine, bathed her, prepared her for bed. They sat quietly in the rocking chair for a few minutes after finishing a bedtime story, the book resting on the floor and Brennan's head resting lightly on Christine's.

The only sound was Christine's soft murmurs to herself and the furnace starting an air exchange cycle.

Once Christine was asleep, Brennan returned to the kitchen and began to cook. He didn't come home—she knew he wouldn't until very late—but she would leave something for him to heat up. When that task was ended, the kitchen restored, she realized she hadn't eaten anything all day herself. So she forced herself to eat some toast and the leftover berries from that morning.

Then there was nothing to do but sit and wait; or go to bed and hope that morning (with Booth) came faster while she slept.

The bed stretched away from her like an arctic shelf, icy sheets and empty space.

Most of her life, Brennan had slept alone and preferred it. Having fought off so many assaults in her life, the thought of being hemmed in had always initiated a sense of panic, a need to push out and claim her personal space. She'd never let any of her previous lovers snuggle in or leave their limbs draped over her, not even Sully. She needed room, nothing over her arms or chest, nothing covering her face or blocking the exchange of carbon dioxide for cool oxygen. Fresh air, freedom to move. It was the only way she could feel safe.

Booth had changed her sleeping preference their first night together, with his warm body tucked behind her, his face buried at her neck, his arms enclosing her protectively. It should have told her something even then, that night undercover in Las Vegas that had ended with Booth's arms around her, his steady heart beating against her, his breath on her. She should have recognized the meaning in the warmth radiating into her from him, that instead of feeling the usual urgent need for escape, she had simply burrowed closer to the only man she trusted. As she had settled into her own bed alone the following night, Brennan found herself missing him. She wanted to sleep with him again, literally just to sleep beside him, making him the only man she'd ever wanted in that way.

Shivering alone in their large, empty bed, she fell asleep hoping his warmth would return before the dawn.

~Q~

In her dreams, they were back in Booth's old apartment, back on the night she'd learned what it meant to make love.

Booth slid his hand along her jaw, lifting her face towards his. In the silvery light of the dying moon he ran his thumb over the curve of Brennan's cheek, below the soft glow of her eyes. "Temperance Brennan, are you strong enough?"

Fear gathered in her breast for a moment, tension coiling in her body as it nestled against his. Pushing bravely against the instinct to resist, to shelter herself, she whispered her reply. "Yes."

"Are you sure?"

Something molten poured into her chest, her belly, her soul, reawakening the flare of hope she felt at his first smile, at the first meeting of their eyes that long ago day. "I don't want you to think I don't care. I do care."

Booth bent towards her, letting their mouths meet in the moonlight. The kiss was sweet, soft, deepening steadily into mutual possession. She felt her mind, heart and soul slipping away, to be sealed up somewhere in the man she loved; and she wasn't afraid.

_Do you believe in fate?_

She closed her eyes, giving herself to the moment. Maybe. Maybe she believed it just then.

His hands slid through her hair, down her back, making her ache to be possessed by him. "I love you," she whispered. "You know I love you."

"Yes," he answered.

His lips were soft, sliding against her skin like a heated brush of silk. Her skin pulsed with each teasing touch, a wake of risen vellus hairs trailing after him. Her lips clung and lamented the separation when his mouth grazed her there, her heart racing, her breath heaving out and in with each labored pull of her lungs. He tormented her with lazy fingertips stroking and lips dancing but never settling where she wanted him.

When she moaned in frustration, he took her mouth at last, firmly, and nibbled on her lower lip. Brennan slid her palms up under his t-shirt, feeling the firm muscles rippling under smooth flesh. Up his pectoralis major, across the trapezius, down the corded deltoid, she mapped muscle and bones, feeling that perfect acromion at last. Then she was withdrawing her hands to sweep down the length of his powerful arms so she could feel his brachioradialis flexing when he pulled away to start tugging off her sweatshirt. His t-shirt joined her sweatshirt on the floor.

He fell onto her, his lips questing over her terrain like an eager explorer. "So beautiful," he murmured as the slightly roughened pads of his fingers traced over her breast, circling and stroking a song of madness into her. Her head pressed backwards as if drawn by a sensual thread from his fingers pulling her torso upwards in ecstasy. Every circle and sizzling pass over her erect nipples made her shudder and groan, the pleasure of his touch pooling far below.

She gasped when his hot mouth closed over one throbbing peak, his hand slipping down over her heaving belly to slip into the soft thatch of curls still concealed. Before she could adjust to the sensations assaulting her breast, Booth had already slipped his fingers into her well, drawing out the nectar and stroking her with one, quick swipe. Her back arched off the bed as sensation exploded between her thighs.

It had been so long since any man touched her there, over three years. Brennan knew she was going to lose control almost immediately. "Please," she gasped, grabbing his wrist to pull his hand away. "I want you inside of me. I want to feel you in me."

He raised his head, eyes glinting black with arousal and masculine pride. Pressing another tender kiss onto her mouth, his tongue offered a preview of what they were about to do while he quickly removed his shorts. Her underwear followed, sliding off her legs while he dipped his fingers into her again and she cried out.

"Look at me," he commanded softly.

Dazed, she met his eyes and felt as if her entire body was coming apart. Her hips fell loosely, her marrow open and empty as if a key part of her had gone missing. Every muscle quivered and every nerve screamed from the sensory overload.

"This is making love," he told her. Their gazes locked. "I love you."

His voice, low and compelling, rumbled over her, the words piercing into her as sweetly and deeply as his body. Heat and pressure tingled against her, filling her. A small explosion started before he'd even gone halfway, her body convulsing in pulses around him until the waves resonated and spread throughout her belly, down her thighs, tingling mindless pleasure into her toes and fingers and she wasn't even sure if she was breathing or if her heart had stopped. The electrical storm raged along every nerve, overwhelming and terrifying and feeling a bit like death.

She sobbed as the storm abated, her body still trembling and aftershocks pulsing between her legs where he was now deeply rooted. Heavy warmth and his heavy weight pressed her down, surrounding her, lifting her. Booth was everywhere, outside and inside, around, over, under, in ... a universe of prepositions.

"Look at me, baby," he crooned. He brushed her hair back from her eyes and lifted her to meet his gaze again. "I love you. Do you understand it now?"

_Do you believe in fate?_

_He loves me. _Tears surged, her heart expanded, her body sang. _He loves me!_

She gasped as he began to move. The intense sensations quickly built up again, his movement within her and surrounding her making her body throb with renewed torment. Every deep thrust sent shocks through her axis, making her desperate for a second release within moments.

"Booth!" she cried, riding a second wave of bliss.

He kissed her feverishly, plunging into her wildly as her body once again convulsed around him. As her arms wound around him and slid down to claim parts of him she'd never dared to touch, Booth groaned. He gathered her more closely against him, palming her buttocks and ramming himself deeper, harder. "Love you!" he grunted. "You're everything. … God, I've wanted you. … My Bones. My baby. So good! You're so good …. Arghh!"

He threw his head back, his legs straight and his body surging so deeply into hers she could feel the pulsing of his orgasm inside of her. The soft ripples of his release triggered her again and she cried out in shock as a third blistering orgasm shuddered through her.

As he fell still, their pulses mingled and their fading spasms where they joined showed her the last line between them had been obliterated. Peace settled over her, all words vanishing, all awareness centered only on him and blurry edges where her body faded into his. And nothing had prepared her for the astonishing revelation that becoming one came _after_ the orgasm, not before. Not during. _After_, when her body melted into his and his flowed into hers and time stood still and she never wanted to move again. That was when she became one with him.

Sitting together in the Diner, leaning over the remains of a meal, he had described this to her that night. "Making love … that's when two people become one."

And she had wanted to believe it, even as unlikely and illogical as it sounded. "It is scientifically impossible for two objects to occupy the same space."

His eyes had held hers, forming the connection even then that had the power to scramble her thoughts. "Yeah, but what's important is that we try, and when we do it right, we get close."

"To what," she had scoffed, because to let him convince her just then might lead to … an unsanctioned experiment, an indecent proposal, an end to everything. Or the beginning of something amazing. "Breaking the laws of physics?"

He had leaned back, teasing her with a cocky grin, but he never really let her go. "Yeah, Bones. A miracle."

All these years, he had never quite let her go.

Laying in his arms nearly four years later, she knew at last what the miracle was. She knew that it was love, that he loved her and in this moment, she believed it.

"I love you, Booth."

"I know," he whispered tenderly.

When she woke, the sun was brightening the window and the bed was still empty. She cried out his name, and a few moments later cried out her heart because the silence meant he hadn't come back. In the morning, the question of whether she'd been dreaming all along dangled over her like the Sword of Damocles. Snip the silken thread, cut the connection, let it fall … she would fall as well.

But the glowing look of love in his eyes, that hadn't been a dream. That had been real, something she'd seen the day he threw her to a motel room floor and recognized her (was it only two weeks ago?), the day she'd told him she was pregnant, the day he'd told her there was only one person you love the most (was it only two years ago?).

Brennan slipped out of their bed and looked around the room they shared, the life they'd made. If there was even the smallest chance it was real, that he loved her, she had to fight for it. She had decided the night they made love that she would take the risk, that she would never let him doubt what she felt.

_"I don't want you to think I don't care."_

She would make sure he knew.

~Q~

Author's Note: Love is a decision. Especially when you're going through a hard time with someone, you either decide it's worth it to stick with them and work through the problem or you decide to give up. Brennan has decided she wants to fight for what she has with Booth, and that means fighting her own fears and doubts. It starts right here.

As for the rest of this chapter, many have speculated that Brennan's defenses had come back to her because of her time on the run. Being forced out to survive on her own, essentially losing her family all over again, brought back all the suffering and nightmares of abuse that she had been recovering from. Angela had it half right: Brennan didn't change, she changed back. She became Tempe and has to fight Tempe's fears all over again.

Brennan, having been in foster care, lacking a good support network and coping mechanisms, and having been repeatedly subjected to abuse, assault, and abandonment, would be considered at very high risk of developing PTSD. A study conducted in Oregon & Washington in 2005 found that adults who had been in foster care for at least one year between ages 14-18 had a higher risk of developing PTSD symptom than even combat veterans. (the risk was 25% for former foster kids, but only 15% for Vietnam veterans.)

I am not sure I'm allowed to post outside links, but if anyone wants to check out the study, they can Google "One in four foster children suffers from post-traumatic stress, study finds," in the Seattle Times, 7 April 2005.


	12. Do You Need Time and Space?

Disclaimer: Still not mine. I wish I was clever enough to come up with an amusing, original way to repeat myself but I'm not clever. If I were, Bones would have been MY idea and I'd be the one reaping the benefits.

Author's Note: First, a very grateful thank you to those who have left me reviews. After stating I'm staying within canon, it was a bit scary to upload a chapter that follows an episode so closely, but with an extra scene that is controversial. To me, the evidence of the next morning in the Bone Room suggests something else happened between Booth and Brennan. She was wearing different clothes, it seems they hadn't spoken to each other since their fight the previous afternoon and, Booth said "I'm sorry for causing you _pain_."

Why would he say that word in particular?

And why was he drinking and looking so lost when Brennan got home at the end? To me, that's evidence that their fight had continued and had gotten a bit worse off screen.

Now, with the morning sun climbing higher, it's time to start cleaning up the mess.

**Chapter Twelve**

_Do You Need Time and Space?_

Preparing for the day, alone with Christine, reminded her far too much of three months spent alone and looking over her shoulder. For the last several years, if she wanted companionship she could simply go to the lab, or call Angela, or wait ten minutes for Booth to bustle in with either a case or a demand for food. Being completely cut off and isolated from society had in fact been much harder the second time, when she knew what and who she was missing. Her father had come and gone, staying with her for a few days, then disappearing to scout ahead for their next location. Christine's presence was reassuring and nerve-wracking in equal measures, partly because she knew having a baby with her made her more vulnerable to fatigue, distraction, and therefore to attack.

And there had been some attacks. Brennan had not been able to afford 'upscale establishments' and had not always been in the company of her father. The dingy "motel-no-tells" that didn't ask for ID also didn't provide her with reputable neighbors. She was mugged one night while walking to her room. With Christine in her arms, there had been no option other than to surrender and hope he only wanted her money, paltry sum that it was. Seeing that gleaming blade so close to her baby's innocent body was utterly terrifying in that way she'd known only when Booth was hurt or missing.

Another night, an attempted rape had robbed her of everything but livid instinct. Christine was safe in the motel with her father, Max, while Brennan had gone to start her all-nighter shift at a truck stop. The man had cornered her in the parking lot, hands on her arms, body moving in too close, his intentions made clear by the leering smirk and promise that he wouldn't hurt her, much. It was anger, a black and unquenchable **_fury_** that welled up in her when yet another man dared to touch her like he had the right because she was smaller and less physically robust, or perhaps it was simply because she was a female. Her anger had given him pause: possibly he'd expected tearful submission. But he'd chosen the wrong female to attack if weakness and tears were what he wanted.

Her eyes had narrowed, becoming as frigid and feral as a predator's unblinking stare moments before the attack. "Let. Me. Go." The guttural command had wrenched itself out of that dark well of wrath she carried inside, and he had been foolish enough not to heed it, instead moving in closer and giving her the opening she needed. He let her go willingly enough, though, when her martial arts training ensured _he_ would be the one forced into retreat, not Temperance Brennan.

Never again would _she_ be forced by a man.

Never again. Never.

Her breathing had increased as she stood safely in her home while the remembered rage flared, and the remoteness of being completely alone in the world taunted. Worst of all was the bitter taste of … well, there was no word for it. None that could voice what she had _felt_ in that graveled lot, except perhaps for a forlorn grouping of sad and lonely adjectives: Lost, alone, unloved, exposed. No one who knew her, no one who cared, no one who would save her from the predators in this world, so she had to save herself. Again. During those three months, she'd gotten lost in Tempe's world.

The last time she'd felt that way was in an abandoned factory, arms bound and Special Agent Kenton promising he'd make sure she didn't suffer. That was the time before Booth, the last moments before Booth charged in and changed fate. Or fulfilled it. This was the time after Booth, but it felt like before.

Tears began, but she wouldn't give in to them. She didn't want to upset Christine. She hadn't wanted to upset Booth, either, so she hadn't told him these darker secrets. He would feel angry and helpless, he would yell and kick something. Most of all, she'd never wanted to relive any of it. None of it.

She wanted it all to be gone, done, over with. Move forward. But … like the moon riding high on a summer night, no matter where she went, the past floated along beside her. It was inescapable.

~Q~

Once at work, Brennan spent the morning in the Bone Room, going over Richard Bartlett's skeleton with careful scrutiny. Hodgins popped his head in to report that he'd run the particulates she'd asked about yesterday and would send Finn Abernathy with a verdict soon.

So she found her cell phone again and sent Booth a message. "_I discovered something that you need to see."_

What she had discovered was her own strength, her will to survive and hold on to the things she'd worked so hard for. What was it Mr. Abernathy had said…? Without the challenge she wouldn't know how brilliant she was. Well then, bring it up ... or out ... or whatever. She would face the challenge in front of her and she would prevail. Brennans never failed at anything.

The next hour passed quietly, giving her time to ruminate in the background as she applied her mind to the concrete task in front of her. Brennan studied each of Bartlett's bones carefully, running her eyes over their intricate surfaces with expert attention to the smallest defects, idiosyncrasies, nuances and flaws. Even the tiniest marks could mean something. She ran her gloved fingertips over the rough surfaces, eyes tracking foramen and grooves, crests and ridges, fossae and condyles, while her touch relayed information about the 'feel' and heft of each bone.

Still deeply engaged in the examination, a familiar sensation drifted over her. A comforting presence, a sense of returning security, an impossibly tangible sensation that lifted her chin and turned her head as surely as Booth's familiar fingers on a sidewalk outside a Diner. He'd told her, "There's more than one kind of family." And his warm eyes had loved her.

Her eyes lifted and moved and found him there at the doorway, wearing an awe-filled, love-struck expression that she'd seen once before.

_Do you believe in fate?_

He'd walked into her lecture and into her life wearing that look. The ice that had encased her all morning started to trickle tiny rivulets when their gazes met and locked. The rivulets became a flow, a running stream that gushed from her to him, carrying her cautious hope to him, reversing course, bringing him back to her.

Booth walked the last few paces that separated them, his gentle gaze conveying both love and sorrow. "I'm sorry, Bones."

She shook her head, knowing it was her fault, her messy fears and feelings that had caused it all. "You shouldn't be sorry for saying what you mean."

_Only for not saying anything at all_, her rational side sighed. But he'd said it now, and she had something tangible to grasp, a problem to solve. She would make sure he understood how very much she cared, how very intensely she wanted him in her life and at her side.

"I'm sorry I caused you _pain_."

The soft note of guilt and shame touched her, made her reciprocate.

"I'm sorry about that, too." She replied quickly. Then, realizing she may have said it with too much haste, with too little gravitas, and therefore he might misunderstand, she took a deep breath and elaborated. "I mean, for hurting _you_. Not for hurting me."

He smiled faintly, his gaze skittering to the side. "I get it."

The awkward moment held them both suspended, neither really looking at each other or looking away. Plans for reconciliation started turning slowly in Brennan's head, tangible things she could do or say to make him feel her love, to prove herself to him. Before any of them could fully form, a throat cleared nearby.

Poking his head around the edge of the door, Finn Abernathy hesitantly announced his presence. "Ah, should I come back, or…."

"Oh, no!" Brennan exclaimed and self-consciously stepped back from Booth half a pace. Booth circled away and strolled casually behind her, his hands deep in his pockets. "Ah, come in! Come in, Mr. Abernathy."

Bearing Bartlett's skull on a platter and looking inexplicably like Hamlet as he sensed the simmering discord between the king and queen, Finn cautiously entered the room. A random line from the play whispered through her head, amusing because it was so very apropos. Hamlet had held aloft Yorick's skull and mused, _"Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now…?"_

Glancing uneasily from his mentor to Agent Booth, Finn set down the tray he was holding.

And Brennan recalled her straying attention from Hamlet's lawyer to her own, to Bartlett, whose skull lay in front of her. She picked it up and rotated the intact side to Booth. "Do you see these fissure lines inferior to the squamosal suture?"

"The cracks," Booth clarified. His voice was still soft, his gaze gratefully fixed on the object she held.

"They're from the fire," Finn clarified.

Brennan nodded approvingly. "When I was examining the skull, I found that the fissures felt …" She turned to Finn, now fully entrenched in her teaching mode. "… what was the word I used, Mr. Abernathy?"

"Disquisitive." He said it quite distinctly, one corner of his mouth lifting as he confessed to Booth, "I had to look it up. In this case, it means that her 'spidey sense' was tingling."

Booth stared blankly at the two of them, clearly losing patience. "What's the deal? What's that mean? I don't…."

"There's something in the fissures," Brennan explained. She regarded Booth cautiously, his impatience reminding her of much earlier days, when he didn't trust her or her science. In later years, he'd taken to waiting with keen anticipation for whatever unexpected clue she always managed to glean, but now…. Now he only wanted her to get to the point.

Booth repeated impatiently, "Cracks."

Growing a bit uncomfortable, Finn glanced at the two of them again before explaining what he'd just learned. "Dr. Hodgins says it's a mixture of toluene, hexane, and methyl-ethyl-ketone."

Musing over that, noting she'd been correct about the organic nature of the substance in the fissures, Brennan finally ventured a supposition on its origin. "Most likely from the accelerant used to burn the body."

Finn nodded. "It's a highly flammable solvent used by architects when building polystyrene models."

She looked up sharply, her eyes growing wide and heading straight for Booth. "Architect."

He read her instantly, his own mind kicking into interrogation gear. There was a lot to do before bringing them in. With a nod, he told her, "Give me an hour.…"

She nodded back, understanding why he needed the time. Then, with a false brightness because of Finn standing there, she added, "Thank you for coming here."

"You're welcome," he replied with excruciating formality. They leaned together and kissed awkwardly, both painfully aware of their audience.

"Okay…." He stepped back, stepped away. At the door, Booth paused long enough to glance back. "Good luck with the maxo-miso-min."

"Good luck to you, too," she replied as stiffly as any dignitary following protocol. When he was gone, she turned to Finn to explain why none of that had felt quite right. "We don't usually kiss in front of people, but we had a disagreement."

Young Mr. Abernathy held very still for a moment, clearly puzzled. "You … already had the fight?"

Her confirmation came as briskly as ever. "Yes."

Even more unsettled, he continued, "And … that was the two of you making up after the fight you already had?"

Brennan lowered her hands, brow furrowing as full uncertainty claimed her once more. "I don't understand your tone of incredulity."

"Oh, no, Ma'am." He quickly tried to recant the unspoken comment on her private affairs. And yet, seeing that she'd clearly expected an explanation, he offered his own interpretation of what he'd seen. "It's just, when my mom and my step-dad used to get all polite like the two of you were just then? That meant all hell was gonna break loose."

And with that, he slipped away.

And with that observation from a young man who'd grown up in a situation rife with hostility and domestic violence, a sinking feeling of dread enclosed her. Because Booth had grown up that way, too. Did that stiff, awkward politeness hide a seething brew of fury? Was she that blind to social interactions, and to Booth?

Yes, of course she was. Biting her lip, Brennan lowered her head and acknowledged she'd never been good with people.

~Q~

When she went to join him as planned, she found Booth waiting for her in his office an hour later. He looked exhausted, betraying that he probably had not slept well. She wasn't even sure where he'd been all night. Feeling keenly that it was her fault he hadn't felt he could go home, she knew she had to absolve him. At least she could do that for him before they tried to outwit the Carmichaels.

Brennan glanced behind her at the bull pen, deciding to shut the door and give them a moment of privacy. "Booth, about yesterday…."

"Now isn't the time," he clipped abruptly.

Halting in front of his desk, her hand lifted to idly trace a pattern on the edge, skirting the inbox and stacks of old divorce cases he and Sweets had gone over the day before. "Perhaps I was too abrupt yesterday," she began cautiously, "but when I said 'not now,' you became angry."

He glared at her. "Bones, we're about to interrogate two murder suspects. Now is not the time."

"I don't want to argue, I just … I need to tell you that it wasn't you." Lifting her pleading gaze to his, her eyes begged him to understand.

He held himself stiffly, body posed frozen but his eyes moving over her face in silent inquiry.

"I had a flashback. I was remembering something that happened a long time ago, before I met you. You didn't hurt me."

Staring blindly down at his desk now, Booth nodded briefly. "Okay."

"I'm not afraid of you," she added. "I … I trust you. I know you would never hurt me."

He nodded again, his shoulders loosening slightly. "Thanks. For that."

"Booth…."

Striding around his desk, he brushed past her and opened the door. "They're waiting for us."

She thought he was going to leave. Her heart lifted into her throat and started to close over her larynx as he stepped away, his back showing. Tears squeezed out from the pressure and the pain and she wasn't sure she could endure the rejection without betraying how much it hurt.

But then, mercifully, he didn't leave. Instead, he turned and looked back with the hint of victory in his eyes. "I think I found something in their divorce file that I want you to see."

"What is it?" Was that her voice, sounding so relieved and breathless?

"I'm not sure. I need your brain because I can't understand half that legalese crap." His hand drifted to the small of her back as she walked out ahead of him, and Brennan finally felt confident that she had come home. She was close to crying again, for a vastly better reason. If they had been anywhere but the bull pen with a dozen agents watching, she would have turned and thrown herself into his arms.

~Q~

Melanie Carmichael laughed derisively. "Glue. You think Gavin killed Bartlett because of some glue?"

"Solvent, actually," Brennan corrected with her typical exactness. She had no patience for this couple, just as certain now as she had been yesterday that they were a duplicitous pair.

Aiming his analytical gaze straight for Melanie, the tougher nut to crack, Booth stepped in. "Right. Not just Gavin. You helped."

"Me. It was Gavin's glue you found." Her voice was cold, accusing.

"Thanks, Melanie," Gavin hissed.

"It's solvent," Brennan repeated impatiently. But her entire body went on alert, hearing that first fracture in their cover story. There it was, she'd known this all along. Was this how it worked for Booth? She felt a glowing sense of triumph, the scent of surety.

"Solvent, right. We got that," Booth interrupted Brennan with an annoyed dismissal of her pedantic insistence on proper nomenclature.

Sinking back, she gracefully accepted his suggestion that the solvent-vs-glue debate wasn't germane to this interrogation.

Booth had turned back to Melanie, his finger tapping the DNA analysis Cam had sent over with Brennan. "Okay, we found your DNA on the murder weapon—here."

Gavin looked blank. "What?"

Melanie raised a hand, completely unconcerned. "If you mean the pen, I cut myself on that when we signed the divorce agreement."

Brennan narrowed her gaze onto Melanie, watching their reunited 'marriage' and Melanie's innocent façade fall apart at the same time. Now she and Booth had the woman trapped, Melanie just didn't know it yet. Sharply, Brennan inquired, "How did you know which pen was used to stab Richard Bartlett?"

Because the DNA would not implicate her until they had Melanie's sample to compare it to. If she'd have been innocent, Melanie would have been shocked at the idea that her DNA would be found anywhere involved with Bartlett's death. And if she were guilty but smart, she would never have mentioned the pen before Booth or Brennan brought it up.

Melanie laughed confidently. "Obviously, it's the one with my fingernail in it."

"We should call a lawyer," Gavin suggested quietly.

Evidently he was the intelligent one, Brennan mused.

Melanie turned on him and snapped, "Suck it up, Gavin." The contempt oozed out, impossible to miss. "These are just tricks. Besides, we don't need a lawyer because I'm a lawyer."

Brennan and Booth exchanged glances. _Do you believe me now_, she wondered. And she could see that he did. The old familiar warmth rushed back to surround her, lifting her spirits and giving her more hope than she'd held in months. This was right. This was _them_, the way they'd always been.

Out of the side of her mouth, Brennan murmured, "They'll probably want their divorce back."

Booth nodded, his eyes betraying more than a trace of mirth. "Probably from a cheaper lawyer, too…."

It felt so normal, so right, that she relaxed. _It's going to be okay._

Booth's gaze shifted to Gavin. "…Because _you_ didn't pay your bill, pal."

Gavin waved that off. "Oh. The bill was a couple months past due. That's not a crime."

Booth shook his head, the trap was closing on them both. "Richard Bartlett is not a patient man; not at all. He nullified your divorce."

In the last hour, Booth had gone over the divorce papers very carefully and Brennan had sat with him as they read it together. He'd discovered discrepancies in the bill of divorcement, but it was Brennan who went over legal statutes and deciphered what it all meant. Brennan looked at Gavin, deciding he wasn't that smart after all. "Apparently, _your_ middle name was missing, and your wife's maiden name. Bartlett used those mistakes to render the whole document null and void."

Booth's eyes gleamed at Melanie. "So _you_ stabbed him in the neck with his own pen."

Gavin leaned forward. "I want to make a deal."

Melanie didn't even look at him, her contempt and disgust still coldly obvious. "Shut up. You weasely little coward."

"Now I really wanna make a deal." Gavin smirked. He leaned forward eagerly. "Melanie killed him. All I'm guilty of is helping her get rid of the body."

There was no honor among thieves, nor ex-spouses. Brennan and Booth traded triumphant grins, knowing their partnership had prevailed over the strain, over this crafty pair. There was hope.

"Moron," Melanie spat. "You're admitting to conspiracy."

Gavin turned, his revenge tasting sweeter. "Still not murder." To Booth, he added, "I'll testify. We have a deal?"

Not quite. Brennan had one more trump card to play. The soft, flat delivery of what she had to share with them sounded in crisp contrast to the impact it had on Melanie and Gavin's dynamic. "He wasn't dead when you tossed him down the construction chute."

"What?" Melanie asked faintly, her eyes gleaming.

"What?" Gavin sounded far less sure of his triumph now.

Melanie's sense of victory was increasing even as his slipped further away. "You mean, _Gavin_ actually killed him?"

"Yes. If he tossed him down the garbage chute." Brennan made that perfectly clear, in case they doubted.

"Well, he _did_," Melanie crowed in delight.

Sputtering like an outraged four year old, Gavin bellowed, "_You_ helped! She helped!"

Melanie sneered, "I'll be the one cutting the deal. All I did was jab him with a pen. You killed the bastard."

Gavin gaped at her in disbelief. "You told me he was _dead_. You checked for his pulse. We could have saved his _life_!"

Brennan and Booth looked from their suspects to each other, bemused. Neither of them had ever witnessed anything like this.

Scoffing, Melanie mocked him again. "Idiot. You just confessed twice to murder."

"Idiot?" he roared.

"Gavin was also the one who set him on fire."

Brennan and Booth again traded looks. Were these two people real?! Was that much spite even possible, that they'd turn on each other and both end up in prison if it meant they could each get revenge?

"And he _liked_ it," Melanie gloated.

"Well, that's good to know," Booth muttered in amazement.

Gavin laughed, outing them further. "She lied about being pregnant. Can you imagine this bitch as a mother?"

This was what she had seen in the divorce papers. _This._ Brennan regarded the two with astonishment and revulsion. "I just don't understand how two people like you ever got married in the first place."

Brennan felt a chill as the essential question plagued her. Had Gavin and Melanie ever loved each other? Had they felt united, the way she and Booth did, when they first decided upon marriage? Despite all the pain of yesterday, and all the fear she still had to battle, Brennan knew she could never turn on Booth the way Melanie had turned against Gavin.

Booth was watching her, his uncertainty clear, but also a glimmer of respect because Brennan had been right about them. She met his eyes, feeling it, knowing by the warmth she saw there that he would never betray her this way either. Even if he did leave, they would never do this to each other.

_I won't give up._ She reached for his hand, squeezing it gently. He weakly squeezed back but then pulled his hand away. That's when she knew they still weren't okay. But they could be.

She shook her head, trying to quell the fear and doubt she'd sworn would not rule over her. Only a couple of hours ago, she'd felt Booth's love reach her from across the room; she'd looked up to see the him looking at her with the same expression he'd had in that moment of their first meeting. That had changed everything, when he'd asked if she believed in fate.

Trusting Booth meant trusting that he wouldn't give up on them. He believed in love, in fate, but she needed to believe it also. She needed to keep trying, and she needed help.

Who do I ask, Brennan pondered. Angela was always sympathetic and knew her history, but she wouldn't force Brennan to confront hard truths. Hodgins was exacting and would hold her to essential honesty, but he didn't know her history very well. She needed someone who combined their traits, and reluctantly acknowledged within a minute that she knew exactly who that was.

~Q~

We're getting close to the end now. I expect between 3-4 more chapters. Thanks for sticking with me so far, and I hope I can wrap this up satisfactorily just in time for Christmas. Fixing them is the hardest part and that's what I'm working on now. If there are any issues you want me to cover, let me know in a review! If there is something you didn't like, let me know. If there is something you do like, it's nice to hear that, too. :)


	13. I Can't Live Like This Anymore

Disclaimer: I'm running out of original things to write here. The only profit I'm getting out of this story is something to think about on my way to and from classes. It's a great reward in terms of mental entertainment, but it doesn't pay a penny towards my expenses.

Author's Note: Keeping Brennan in character for this was really hard because she's not terribly fond of Sweets and she hates psychology. She is very stubborn and guarded, which made this conversation challenging. Between Sweets and me, we finally managed to get something out of her but it was quite a struggle.

I hope everyone in the United States has had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

**Chapter Thirteen**

_"I can't live like this anymore!"_

After Melanie and Gavin Carmichael finished incriminating each other in front of a running video recorder, Booth started the process of charging and arresting the scrabbling two for assault, murder, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. He didn't need her for that part.

Knowing Booth would be busy for a couple of hours escorting them to the Federal detention center, Brennan walked into the elevator and let her hand hover over the call buttons. L or 6 …? L meant escape, denial, a conscious decision to remain caught in the old patterns she'd developed in order to survive. It also meant ruin, entropy. Her index drifted up past the L and stabbed 6. She slid backwards in the car, recalling yesterday's enclosed space and Booth's anger thundering against the walls. The sensation of being trapped and under siege chased her out when the door opened to expel her into the next hallway.

If she kept running, it would always come after her, snapping at her heels and throwing clods of dirt at her back. She might slow or trip as she had recently, and then it would run beside her, catch her and throw her down. The only escape was to stop running away. She had to stand and fight, to defeat and conquer the past that haunted her. Only then could she finally walk through her life, free to live, free to love.

_"You have to face it sooner or later…."_ Two male voices ricocheted in her head. Only one of them was a voice she wanted to heed, the only voice that mattered.

Acutely aware of how out of the ordinary her excursion was, Brennan concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu had famously claimed that _"the journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet."_ To begin anything meant to begin exactly where one stood, the first step only becoming possible after one made the actual decision to go.

At the door, she stood irresolutely to the side, gathering her thoughts as agents and support staff streamed past her. Lao-tzu had also said, _"To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease."_ Acknowledging that she didn't know anything, Brennan knocked lightly on the door of someone she hoped might be able to teach her.

"Come in," the occupant commanded.

And so she lifted her foot to begin the journey.

"Dr. Brennan," he greeted her formally, his posture relaxed. "Is this a friendly visit, or a formal one?"

She clasped her hands in front of herself, humbled at the request she had to make. "I'm not sure. I think … I think there's something wrong. With me. Something's wrong, and I don't know what to do."

Dr. Lance Sweets raised a brow. "I'm not the department psychiatrist anymore."

"I know." Brennan stepped closer, incontestably reluctant and afraid of what she was about to do. "It's not about work. I need to talk to someone."

"And you chose me?" He didn't bother hiding his surprise. His grin was a gentle tease. "You must be desperate, then."

Her eyes flashed, her limbs tightening in reaction. Leaving suddenly seemed a more logical choice after all, if he wasn't going to take her visit seriously.

Sweets noticed it immediately and hastened to undo the damage before she decided to flee. "I'm sorry, that was probably the wrong thing to say."

"It is the truth, however," she confessed, surprising him again. His face showed it, eyes open and mouth slightly ajar. She knew that expression meant surprise.

Maybe she shouldn't blame him for not recognizing the difference in her visit this time. Brennan reminded herself that she'd never been willing to cooperate with the mandated therapy sessions before, except when it had been contingent on her partnership with Booth remaining intact. Then, despite every resistant fiber of her being, she had gone along every one of his demands: the 'sharing' in the 'truth zone,' the patently ridiculous trust-building exercises, the role-playing games. None of it had helped her with Booth other than to placate the FBI brass and ensure Sweets recommended they stay together. It was undeniable, therefore, that all of his previous experience would have conditioned Sweets not to expect her to actually seek his advice.

He gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs opposite his desk. "And why are you desperate?"

"I don't know where to begin," she admitted. There were so many things: Booth not talking to her, the flashbacks, their argument from yesterday, his accusation that she was shutting him out, the gnawing fear that never left her. Telling any of this to Sweets, the very thought of it, went against every instinct she had. She shook her head and decided to begin with what she knew.

She hated psychology, and that would never change. Psychology applied generalities to individuals, which might not be harmful in the academic pursuit of understanding general human behavior. Generalities tended to lose their efficacy when applied to individuals, however. Almost every 'psychological analysis' of her, for example, had been wrong. She'd left behind in various psychologist's offices a record of near perfect inaccuracy. Being atypical in intelligence guaranteed atypical results, an obvious fact that had always seemed to elude every child psychologist who'd declared they knew what she thought or why she thought it.

Thus, the first order of business was to lay out the ground rules. She was not here to be analyzed or generalized. She did not fit into a neat little box on a checklist; she never had.

"Angela says that being alone … out there … changed me, that I'm different now. But she's wrong." Meeting his gaze fiercely, she dared him to contradict her in this.

Sweets nodded slowly, considering. "You feel that you haven't changed."

"I know that I haven't."

He stood, removing the obstacle of desk between them to take the seat opposite her. "If I suggested that you changed back, do you think that would be accurate?"

Startled and then greatly relieved, she nodded. "Yes. I did what I had to do, to survive. The same as before. It was like … putting on a coat, and then taking it off again. I'm still me, no matter what coat I wear."

Musing over her metaphor, he tilted his head in inquiry. "Are you still wearing the coat?"

_"To know that you do not know is the best."_ The possibility existed, she supposed. Metaphorically.

After a pause, he asked cautiously, "Would it be safe to say that being alone, losing your family, facing threats to your safety, might have stirred up old memories for you?"

Another long pause, while Brennan looked at her hands and wished she didn't have to answer this. Two days ago she would have denied it and believed the denial, but the events of yesterday had unequivocally proved him correct.

"Yes," she said quietly. "I had a flashback yesterday."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

Turning her head to gaze out the window, to consider what Angela had suggested about needing to explain it to Booth, she sighed. "But I have to. It happened in front of Booth. We were fighting."

"Fighting?"

"Yes." Brennan gnawed on her lower lip, forcing the confession out. "That's why I came, actually. But the flashbacks are part of the problem, so…."

"Okay." Sweets regarded her with curiosity. "How do you want to proceed here, Dr. Brennan? You've told me in the past that you have no use for psychology." He offset the reminder with a small grin, showing that her disdain for his 'soft' science was well-known and no longer bothered him.

"That's true," she agreed. But her answering smile, mild as it was, suggested she might be willing to make an exception.

"Do you want to talk and I'll listen? Do you want me to guide the discussion? Do you want advice? Basically, what are you looking for from me."

Fixing her gaze on her lap, Brennan shrugged loosely. "Given that I hate psychology and have never had a good experience with any psychologist…." She trailed off, glancing up to note his injured expression. "You experimented on me."

Sweets flushed, accepting the rebuke with a nod.

"But aside from that," Brennan continued slowly. "You have helped me, in the past. You have had some of the same experiences. And, you are my friend. I … value your input."

His eyes softened. "That means a lot to me," he admitted. "I'm glad you consider me a friend. I care about you, too."

Wonderingly, she looked up and knew her own surprise and hesitation must be visible to him. Her heart had twisted a little, torn by doubt and disbelief. "You care about me?"

"Like a sister," Sweets agreed with a chuckle. "An annoying, bossy older sister who picks on me constantly but when I really need her, I know she'll be there for me."

This last was said with such soft sincerity that Brennan's breath caught. All she could think to say was, "Why?"

"Why do I care about you?"

She nodded.

"Because I'll never be able to thank you enough for what you've done for me."

"I … I haven't done anything."

"Yes, Dr. Brennan, you did. You dragged Booth in here when I was alone. You made him invite me to dinner. And when I didn't want to go, you forced a connection by telling me one of the most horrific experiences you'd ever gone through, and then you forced Booth to share something too."

She blinked back tears, nodding. They never spoke of it, but she knew none of them would ever forget the secrets shared that night.

"You willingly went into the dark with me, and you brought me out into the light with you. You adopted me. You gave me a family, your family at the Jeffersonian. How could I not love you after that?"

Her face crumpled at that, the urge to cry nearly overwhelming. Sweets moved closer, kneeling in front of her and clasping her shoulder with a gentle hand until she'd calmed.

"Why did you do that? Before that night, I didn't think you even liked me."

A muffled burst of laughter erupted from her, because really, that had been true. She had resented the power he held over her partnership; she had been furious and distrusting after his 'experiment' in not telling her Booth's death had been faked. When she couldn't avoid Sweets, she'd dug into him just as relentlessly as Booth had. Yet seeing the scars on his back had changed her view of him immediately.

Brennan lifted her hands, wiping tears from her eyes, her thoughts turning over rapidly. What she had learned from losing Vincent was to stop holding herself back. If people didn't understand her, it was because she didn't give them enough information to act upon reliably. This was why Angela was so helpful, because she'd tugged and pulled and recorded every inadvertently revealed scrap of personal history out of Brennan. Booth had bulldozed over her protests and forced his way in.

Sweets was asking for something she could give, a reassurance that posed little real risk. Possibly if she gave him that small piece of herself, he might be able to provide her with a new insight, or at least the relief of a burden shared. Considering that as a worthwhile benefit in itself, she reached a decision.

It was all connected anyway: that night, her flashbacks, running away and every memory it had dredged up. "I have them, too."

He couldn't hide his confusion. "Them…?"

"Scars on my back. Not metaphorical. Literal, from a whip."

Shocked, horrified, he sat back on his haunches and wondered what he was supposed to say to that. "Wow. I honestly don't know what to say," he finally confessed.

She kept her gaze somewhere firmly distant, unable to look at the sympathy she suspected Sweets was harboring. "I didn't want you to think you were the only one."

Sweets was a clever man, she'd always known that. He tilted his head to one side and flipped over her truth with astonishing ease. "The flashback that you had, was it from the trunk incident?"

Closing her eyes, containing the tears that insisted on seeping out of the edges, she nodded. Her next admission almost surprised her because she hadn't planned to make it, but she'd already mentioned the two things to him, the scars and the dark. All that remained was to link them.

When she'd had to describe the events of that night to the nurses, then the doctors, then again to the police, and yet again to social workers, lawyers and the mandated psychologist, every telling had been crisp, detailed, sharply drawn with fact and no emotion. That was always how she gave her testimony, for her own case or for the victims she'd defended in court: fact without feeling. Detachment. Report it as if it had happened to someone else.

It was the same this time, almost. Towards the end, as if realizing for the first time that she was sharing this horror with someone who actually cared, who would be hurt by the crisp truth, Brennan's feelings began to emerge. She'd never spoken of the fear before, to anyone. "The night my foster father put me in the trunk, he whipped me until I bled, then he dislocated my shoulder on the way there. I vomited from the pain; it was hot and black and … I thought I was going to die."

She'd begged and she'd pleaded to be released. After what felt like a week had passed and no one came, she'd given up hope, resigned herself to death. Yet that was never the part that haunted her. "The worst moment was when he grabbed my wrist to drag me out and I saw the anger in his eyes."

Darkness had never frightened her so much as fury, because it was always someone's fury that pulled the dark over her. A renewal of dread whispered through her, making her shiver involuntarily. "That's what I saw in Booth yesterday."

Sweets took it in quietly but with obvious concern. When he finally said something, he latched onto what might have been the most important admission of all. "What were you fighting about?"

"He has been distant since my return. I said something yesterday that I knew would make him angry. At the time I thought it would help, but it only made things worse. And _that's_ why I'm here."

"Because you made things worse?"

Shaking her head, holding in tears again—would this teary, emotion-driven version of herself ever go away?—Brennan confessed the biggest failure of her life. "I can't do this. It's why I've always been reluctant to develop any close relationships, why I was always so unwilling to try. I have driven everyone away. It's me. I'm the poisonous constant, the repelling force. I don't understand _people_."

She did the wrong thing, said the wrong thing, upset people, offended them. None of that was an issue with strangers or distant coworkers; it created nothing but sorrow when she offended those she cared about. _I get attached to them, and they leave._

Sweets took his seat again, giving her a moment to draw a shuddering breath and regain her control. "I don't think that's true," he said mildly. "Look at you and Agent Booth, or you and Angela. You've been in a relationship with them for over eight years. Look at everyone at the Jeffersonian, even me. It's been nearly as long, and you haven't driven any of us away."

She sighed, not conceding the point but not denying it, either.

It was a common therapist's technique to sit quietly and wait for the subject to speak. Brennan knew this from the dozens of counseling sessions she'd been forced to attend as a traumatized teen, and thus she recognized his silent intention when Sweets sat back and folded his fingers, waiting patiently for her to decide what to share with him. Setting the course of their discussion rested with her, in the words she chose to use and the questions she needed answered. Another step, and another journey to begin.

"The couple we arrested today, they were married. They hated each other and, I keep wondering how they ever got married. Did they ever feel…." She paused, struggling with her instinct to conceal her feelings. Chancing a peak at Sweets, however, reminded her that he knew already. "…Feel the way I do about Booth. Or the way he feels about me. How could anyone do that to someone they used to love?"

Brennan lifted her right hand and stroked the fourth proximal phalanx on her left hand, the 'ring finger.' There was no ring there, yet the thought of spending all the remaining days of her life with Booth was the only thought she could envision. She wore a metaphorical ring, placed there by her thoughts and feelings towards her partner. Her mate. Her Booth.

She shook her head, still worried. "If they loved each other once, and now there's so much hatred that they would each turn on the other, what would prevent Booth and me from ending up that way, too? What would stop that from happening?"

Sweets nodded encouragingly. "You already know the answer to that, Dr. Brennan. That's why you're here."

_No, I don't know,_ she admitted helplessly. Out loud, she could only propose the ultimate fail-safe, the approach she'd tried before. "Wouldn't it be more rational to just quit now, while we still care enough to work with each other? I … I don't want to hate him."

"No," he refuted. "That would mean giving up, right now. Are you willing to give up and walk away?"

She shook her head. Certainly it was rational, but the thought of quitting Booth made as much sense as quitting food or oxygen. Some things and some people become necessities.

"Well, then." Sweets concluded. "That means the only alternative is to keep trying."

Morosely, Brennan studied her bare left hand again. "What if I fail?"

"I don't know this other couple you've told me about aside from Bartlett's case file, but I _do_ know you and Booth. You are not going to end up like Melanie and Gavin Carmichael."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're here, because you're trying." He laughed a little. "Because you're willing to put up with me and my psychology if it will help you work things out with Booth. You are using every tool at your disposal to repair your relationship with him, and that is how I know you're going to succeed."

"But he's so angry," she whispered.

"I'm sure he is," Sweets agreed, surprising her. Off her startled gaze, he continued to explain. "There's a lot to be angry about. Without in any way minimizing what you've experienced, have you and Booth discussed the impact your leaving had on him…?"

She shook her head. She had tried so many times, and Booth had shrugged it off. "He won't talk about it."

"Agent Booth was deeply hurt by your leaving."

Brennan huffed an exasperated breath. "I know. I _know_."

"You know how he felt?"

"Do you think I'm that cold, Sweets? That I don't remember what that feels like? I left him. It was for his own good and it was rational. There was no other choice. He says he understands, but I know that it hurt him. I know!"

"Have you two talked about it?"

"He won't. He just says it's fine but he won't look at me." She bit her lip, thinking it through.

With a tired sigh, Sweets shook his head. "He wants to believe that it's fine. Deep down he knows it isn't."

Completely bewildered, she clasped her hands together and sat helplessly because she quite literally did not know what to do or to say. Had she been plopped onto a small piece of slowly melting ice and left alone in the ocean, Brennan could not imagine that cold loneliness being any worse than this. There was nothing to guide her, nothing to hold on to. Nothing but a void.

"I'm afraid he hasn't forgiven me."

"What makes you say that," Sweets inquired.

"Because he won't talk to me, even when I've tried to tell him what happened while we were gone. He won't even let me finish half the time."

"Possibly it's too painful for him to hear, both in the sense that he was unable to protect you while you were gone, and in the sense that he missed that time with you and Christine."

Sweets paused, either to give her time to process these ideas, or to gather his own thoughts. A moment later, he seemed to come to a resolution and proffered some advice. "If I might make a suggestion, the manner in which you reached the decision to leave—both in terms of swiftness and in your choice not to share your plans—may need to be discussed."

Yes, she had suspected this. Brennan had tried during her first night back to explain her reasoning, but Booth had merely ended it with a quick agreement that she had made the most rational decision possible. Reason conflicted with feeling, however. This was something she was beginning to know much more deeply than she ever had before now that her own emotions had been so violently churned up.

"Okay," she agreed. "Yes, I can do that."

Sweets glanced at the clock behind her and winced. "I'm really sorry, but I have an appointment I need to keep. If you'd like to stop by after six, we can continue then."

Brennan stood, considering. With a shy smile she nodded acquiescence. "I appreciate you making time for me," she replied formally.

"I always have time for a friend," he returned. "In the mean time, I have another suggestion for you to consider. Perhaps you should explain the emotional impact you experienced, rather than a news reporting of your activities and movements. Tell him what you _felt_."

Tugging her clothing straight and barely resisting the compulsion to band her arms across her chest defensively, she sighed and murmured, "I never do that."

"I know," he replied, vaguely amused. "It introduces an uncomfortable level of vulnerability to reveal one's feelings."

_Never let them see you cry._

Frowning as a sudden connection was made and sparks shot through synapses, blinking as the light splashed over her and illuminated what she had missed in the dark, Brennan wondered why it had taken her this long to realize it. Was it possible that Booth held back for the same reasons she did? Of course. It would have made sense to hide his feelings from his abusive father or from fellow soldiers, just as she had been conditioned to hide from Erickson and her often unsympathetic peers. He was hiding from her, and she was hiding from him; it shouldn't be a surprise that they'd lost sight of each other.

All those times when he'd seemed to know just what to say or to do, it wasn't because Booth understood hearts, all hearts. He'd only ever understood _one_—his own—and that had revealed hers because they were so much the same. So simple that it was beautiful, the solution fell into her hands and her heart matured, blossomed, ripened with joy. She knew what he needed, she'd known all along.

~Q~

Next up, the miracle: Brennan and Booth actually talking about their issues. Meanwhile, I think it's snowing down there where the devil lives, pigs are flying, who knows what will happen.


	14. You Believe Love is Eternal

Author's Note: So, the flying pigs have come home to roost. Brennan has finally gone home to Booth.

(I think I just made a rhyme. Shall we do that one more time?)

Yeah, you're right. I should stop now, before you all starting having a cow.

Oh, gee! Somebody stop me...

Disclaimer: If only Hart Hanson and the rest would pay me to write this stuff. Better yet, if only I were clever enough to have invented any of these wonderful characters on my own. Then, things would be different.

~Q~

**Chapter Fourteen**

_"You Believe Love is Transcendent and Eternal. I Want to Believe That, Too." _

When she opened the door, the first thing Brennan noticed was that the room was dim, lit only by the light over the kitchen sink and one small lamp in the corner of the living room. The next thing she noticed was that it was quiet because the television was off. She concluded Booth must have put Christine down for the night because she couldn't see or hear her daughter, but the baby monitor was resting on the coffee table. He had changed out of his suit into his standard black T-shirt and jeans. The last thing she noticed was that instead of relaxing in front of the TV, he was sitting at the eating bar nursing a Scotch from a bottle she thought might have been full that morning. And she wasn't really sure what that meant.

"Hi," he said.

He sounded cautious, she thought. Wary.

Just like her.

"Hi."

Walking into her own home hadn't been this nerve-wracking in years, not since she had lived with Peter. It had always been a risk during those last, tense weeks. Peter would brood, hurl accusations, start yelling. Some nights it had gotten bad enough that she'd left and returned to work. It was during that time when she'd made the trip to IKEA and had the sofa delivered to her office. Brennan pushed herself into the home she shared now, shutting and locking her means of escape behind her.

"Kind of late," he observed.

The question was there, and she recognized a fear in his words as well. Already, this was different than Peter. Different was good, different meant there was hope and she might bring about a much better outcome. He needed what she needed—he needed to _know_.

Approaching him, leaving her bag and coat behind and her hands empty, she explained why it had taken her so long to come home. "Well, I went to see Sweets."

She could tell she had surprised him. Booth's eyebrows shot up, his eyes opening wider. "Why?"

"Because," she admitted miserably, "Something is wrong with me."

And wasn't that the origin of it all? Something was wrong with her, about her, inside of her. The same something she had always lacked, had never truly been able to compensate for, was hurting him just as she'd always feared it would. For years she had known she was different, had even wondered idly whether she was broken because of the events of her life, or if she'd simply been born incomplete. For years she'd thought he must have understood, that he overlooked her missing pieces. Yet after yesterday, she couldn't stop the question from circling. What if it was those missing pieces that had driven other people away from her? What if they drove him away also?

"No, Bones. Nothing is wrong with you."

Booth's instinctive protectiveness had kicked in when he heard her speak with such painful self recrimination. He got up and moved closer, yet they were still standing a few feet apart and his arms were crossed in subconscious defense. She hadn't failed to notice his hesitation even as he tried to give her an out, one that would bring about the end they both feared. Did he know that? Was that why he offered it?

Did he think an out was what she wanted?

"No." Forcing herself to acknowledge how little she understood basic human interactions, emotions, and conflict resolution, Brennan shook her head resolutely. A single, simple illustration might show him what she lacked. Angela had called it common sense. "I thought today when we apologized to each other, that everything was fine."

The change came over him slowly, a different kind of comprehension. She'd admitted what she'd misinterpreted from their interactions, and he realized that he should have known better because he knew Brennan had always struggled to capture nuances. It wasn't a question so much as it was admitting that he should bear his own share of responsibility. "Because we were being polite," he said.

"Yes. We were polite." Objectively polite was good—it might have helped the Carmichaels avoid becoming embroiled in assault, financial ruin and homicide. Yet, being polite and apologizing for the surface argument hadn't taken her and Booth far enough to a reconciliation. Brennan knew that her shallow acceptance of empty words might have cost her everything. Her social ignorance had blinded her just as effectively as being mechanically blinded. "But you still knew that everything wasn't fine."

Like a child who grew enough to realize her parents don't know everything, Brennan had grown enough to understand that Booth didn't, either. He was just as lost as she was, the Hansel to her Gretal.

Booth pulled his arms loose and raised his hand up to his brow in resignation. "I was, uh, hoping that it would be. In the future."

"Only if we admit that it isn't fine right now." Their weak apologies were like putting a band aid over necrotic tissue: it cured nothing and let the disease spread unchecked. This was the slowly growing truth that had become increasingly inflamed between them over the days since she'd left, and like a patient avoiding treatment, the infection had spread over everything between them, invading even the healthy areas of their lives. The only cure was conversation, excision.

She closed the distance between them until they were standing just a foot apart, but Booth glanced away. He'd been doing that all along, and she had not known what it meant. Sensing he was not ready to face the work ahead, she searched through the previous two hours of work she'd done with Sweets for something to offer. Booth had given her an out; perhaps he needed one as well. It might facilitate the discussion to take even more of the blame, and in so doing to alter their course.

There was a reason she'd let slip the comment about taking Christine alone to the Children's Museum. There was a reason that particular catalyst had set loose the tempest between them.

"Sweets says that I am subconsciously rebelling against the fact that my happiness is now contingent upon your happiness, and Christine's."

She knew this was partly true—she'd always struggled with letting anyone in, had even told Booth that she was afraid of loss years ago. It was her primordial truth, one of the parts of her that had always been missing, but she knew it wasn't the real problem they faced now. She thought she might finally know what the real problem was, and was slowly working up her courage to confront it.

Meanwhile, Booth demonstrated his mastery over emotional minefields quite adeptly, by dismissing what he knew was merely emotional chaff. "Sweets is good with the psychology, but we're _more_ than psychology."

What they had lacked was hope, faith, trust. What had separated them was fear and doubt.

"We're going to be okay," he promised softly, and assured her more than he could ever know just by saying it.

She heard it, that his faith in them had returned.

"I just—I don't want to be polite about this!" She slapped her hands lightly against his chest, needing him to take a step further with her. _Don't hold back. Don't protect me. Don't protect yourself._

Raising her hopes, she met him with a silent plea. Could he still read her? Would he get the message? _Talk to me._

His eyes were warming, the hint of a grin flickering at the edges of his lip. "Okay. I'll just make sure that it doesn't happen again."

"How?" She knew she sounded skeptical because his agreement had come too fast.

His teasing grin completely disarmed her. "I'll fart when I kiss you."

Laughing despite herself, she groaned, "Oh my God."

He laughed a little also, but then grew quite serious. The joke dissipated, having served its purpose to lighten the mood. As sorrow whispered across his countenance, she was reassured that Booth could indeed read her still. He had gotten the message, and he was keeping his promise not to let it happen again.

"I was mad. I lost you and Christine for three months. I'm never going to be able to get that time back."

She nodded slowly, feeling partially mended simply by his willingness to reveal part of himself to her. Now it was her turn. She could never restore their time apart, but there were still concessions she could make. "I have a way to fix that."

"What, you have a time machine in your basement?"

"No." He was taking refuge in humor—Brennan recognized this was what he was doing. Just as she hid behind facts and algorithms, Booth hid behind jokes and bluster. The sweet sensation of affection washed over her as she recognized his coping mechanism for what it was. "But we can take Christine to the carousel. Even though, I know the outcome."

"You're a wild woman," he teased.

"I love you," she declared firmly, knowing she was making her own leap of faith. To get reassurance from Booth, she would reassure him first. "I'm willing to do irrational things to prove it."

It might have worked. Taking the final step between them Booth kissed her gently, his lips teasing over hers. "'Cause you're irrational?" he asked against her.

Instead of saying anything, Brennan returned his caress and raised him a brushing of noses. But as he pulled back a bit, she felt the tell-tale tensing of his abdomen and narrowed her eyes at him in warning. "Don't you dare."

"What?" he asked, as wide-eyed and innocent as Parker tried—and generally failed—to be.

"Don't you _dare_…." She was almost laughing, but considered plugging her nose just to be safe.

"I wouldn't…." he insisted unconvincingly.

"I will hurt you."

"Bones, I don't doubt it."

He was laughing, but … it hit her hard, what he'd said. What she'd threatened, what she'd done. He _should_ doubt it, should never be so sure she could hurt him.

She reached for him, pulling him closer until their bodies connected, burying her nose in the curve of his clavicle, her lips resting right above the bony callus from that long-ago break when he'd been caught by the bomb meant for her. That callus was there because of her, he'd been hurt because of her. "I'm sorry. I acted like an alpha female and I shouldn't have done that."

His fingers glided gently through her hair, lifting her, his expression affectionate and curious. "What do you mean?"

Brennan reached for his hand, lacing her fingers into his, but her eyes had drifted to the small round scar she knew still marred the skin over his right pectoral. "I never told you why I hit you."

"Which time," he asked lightly. Turning, he pulled her over to the sofa so they could sit and settle in together. Brennan dropped her head back onto Booth's steady shoulder, relishing the sturdy warmth and strength and solidity of him.

"At your funeral. I was angry."

His shoulders jostled under her head as she felt him chuckling. "I kinda figured."

"But I never told you why I was angry."

"Well, it was obvious why."

"No, Booth. I don't think you realize." She hesitated, took a sharp breath as she pressed herself closer to him. Paradoxically, as she opened a door to past pain and anger, she needed to get closer, to reassure him that she was lancing the healed wound for a reason. An apology was meaningless unless he knew she fully understood what she'd done to him, and how intense was her regret over it.

"I was angry because you made a unilateral decision. You acted like a typical alpha male, put yourself in danger without regard for the consequences—I thought you died!—and you didn't involve me anywhere in that decision. You just … acted. And I was furious."

"Bones, I didn't decide anything. That woman was going to shoot you. I didn't think, I just stood up." He pulled her in tighter. Without even having to look, she sensed his eyes darting around the room searching for hidden threats before his lips dropped to the top of her head. "I would do anything to keep you safe, you and Christine and Parker."

Brennan accused softly, "But if you'd have had time, you still would have done the same thing." Always the sniper, always the protector, she knew he'd never needed time to think. Booth had always acted on instincts and impulses.

"Probably," he agreed without remorse.

"Hitting you was my first impulse because you were alive and I couldn't even be happy about it. You'd made me so angry when you took the decision away from me. The whole time you were dead, under all that pain I was _angry_. I didn't want you to die for me."

"Bones," he murmured sadly.

Drawing back, facing him, she confessed softly. "I loved you."

"Then?" he asked, slightly breathless.

"Always."

They'd covered this before. Always means forever, a promise she'd once said she couldn't make, yet she was making it now. She could see the difference work its way through him, how his eyes softened and his body seemed to relax next to hers.

"I was glad to have you back, but under that I was angry." _I can know you,_ she realized with a searing joy, _because I know myself. _"You're angry with me for the same reason."

"You understand." The relief came off of him in waves.

"I do," she affirmed, her forgiveness sounding clear and true, her love coming through. And the acceptance that she'd harmed him compelled her to say the rest, that part he needed most right now.

Brennan loosened her hands from his just long enough to trace a gentle line along his fingers, up his right arm, and across unerringly to the scar that hid under his shirt. "That's why I should know better than to be a hypocrite, because I know what it feels like to be the one who is shut out. I understand what you meant yesterday, Booth. I did shut you out."

She raised her eyes at last, knowing he would need to see the contrition in her, as well as the love and acceptance. "We each thought we were taking care of the other in some way, but it was wrong to make a huge decision like that without including the other person."

Seeing that she had surprised him, Brennan set herself to wait for his response. He was shaking his head, clearly somewhat amazed.

"That's not quite what I meant, Bones, but … yeah." He sighed.

"I want to explain why I took Christine," she offered cautiously.

"You don't have to, I understand why."

Again he would avoid lancing the wound, so she squeezed his hand and begged him to stop avoiding the painful cure. "Please, it's important."

He groaned reluctantly, dropping his head back against the sofa. "Okay."

"When my parents vanished, Russ and I thought something bad had happened. It was awful, thinking that they'd probably been killed. The difference in how that felt, versus how it felt when Russ left me … it hurt _worse_, Booth, because he _chose_ to leave. And then, when I found out my mother had been alive for almost two years—that she also chose to leave me…."

"Bones, don't." He wrapped his arm around her more tightly, unable to resist protecting her even from haunting memories.

"I didn't know if I was ever going to be able to come back," she pressed, resisting his effort to stop her confession. "If I had left Christine, she would feel that same rejection, that she wasn't loved enough. I didn't want her to feel that kind of pain. If I told you what I was planning, and you let us go, then you would be the one giving her up. You would be the parent who left her."

The tears were back again, and she fought them. Sweets had advised she share her feelings, and she knew eventually she would, but for now she needed to share her logic. At the rate she was going, the feelings were bound to come through regardless.

Booth's face had gone pale at Brennan's analysis of who would be abandoning Christine. He looked sick, and angry.

She raised her hand to touch his cheek, to draw his angry gaze onto her. "But if I didn't tell you, if I took the choice away and stole her from you, then it would be _me_. Only me. She would never feel that you didn't want her. She would know that you didn't have a choice because I took it from you."

He pulled himself away, standing to pace and his eyes skittered all over the antiques in the room. "You were being rational," he repeated. He'd said this before. "I get it."

Shaking her head, she stood but didn't stop his frenetic activity. "No, I was being completely, unacceptably emotional. If I'd have been acting on reason, I would have realized that shutting you out of a decision about our daughter's future was wrong. But I was scared, Booth."

The tremor in her voice reached him as a seismic wave. She had never admitted to fear before. Coming to a halt, he watched and waited, held suspended by anticipation, as if he knew what was coming next. And here it came, the inevitable collapse of her flimsy emotional control in front of the only person she trusted enough to witness it.

"Why did he do that to me?" she finally asked, her voice breaking. "Why does he hate me? I never did anything to him, I don't even know him."

Booth cursed and returned to enfold her in his arms. "I don't know," he told her. "I'm not angry at you. It's him, it's what he did to you, to _us_, that has me tied up in knots."

Finally the carefully constructed defenses splintered and sheered away, leaving two raw and wounded souls to grieve in unison. It was the first time they'd cried about Christopher Pelant's assault on their life together. Huddled together in the center of their home, they both let go and fell together.

~Q~

The antique cuckoo clock in the kitchen drew a wheezy breath before thrusting the colorful bird out to announce the hour had grown late. Brennan stirred, pulling herself back from Booth's sleepy arms and shooting the noisy contraption a quizzical glance.

"You wound it?"

Booth's eyes crinkled, his brows raised. "You just now noticed?"

Flushing, peeved at her inexcusable lack of awareness, she glared at the offending time piece. How could she have missed it, given how loud the rapid clicks from the pendulum were in the otherwise quiet house. She had been focused so intensely on Booth that nothing else had mattered. "It wasn't wound last night."

"I wound it tonight when you didn't come home," Booth explained.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it was too quiet."

He'd been sitting at the bar, staring into the dark and empty living room, keeping company with a bottle of Scotch and a ticking clock. She had only spent one night alone in this, their home, and it had been hours of silent misery. For Booth, it had gone on for months, and after last night she could finally begin to comprehend how painful it must have been. Yet there was nothing she could do to take those months of sorrow away. There were no reparations that could restore time.

Bringing his gaze from the antique that had been his grandmother's to Brennan, he absently brushed a wisp of hair away from her cheek. "I wound it every morning you were gone."

Another clutch of impending tears tightened her throat and throbbed under her brows. "You were afraid I wasn't going to come home," she realized, struck hard with remorse. Not just the time she was a fugitive, but tonight.

He tossed out a self-deprecating laugh. "Yeah, I guess."

"I should have called." Tearfully, she palmed his cheek. "I'm sorry."

"I know." His hand stroked over her head, drawing her chin up so he could see her face. "You gotta stop apologizing every five minutes."

"I will stop when I no longer do things that later compel me to express my contrition," she promised solemnly.

Laughing, he tugged her closer for another embrace. Neither moved for what seemed an eternity, lulled by their closeness and the rapid clicks of the pendulum. Booth often joked that he could hear her thinking in moments like these. In this moment, her mind had been temporarily dampened, all of her mental energy going towards him.

She could feel him thinking about something, worrying it between cerebral fingertips as he often did with the poker chip.

"Bones, you said something yesterday that bothered me."

She held still and waited for him to continue, her mind working over what it was. It wasn't like her to worry, to fret over what had not been expressed yet. Brennan had always shunned speculation. However, in the last few days she couldn't seem to stop her spinning thoughts from extracting the worst possible ideas and enlarging them. Sweets had explained she'd regressed, returned to a previous state of hyper-arousal and wariness that had carried her through her adolescence and early adulthood. To Brennan, it felt like she'd lost half of her mind: the analytical, patient half that avoided speculation and conjecture in favor of empirical evidence and facts.

"You asked if I would stay with someone I didn't love because they were having my baby. I thought we were talking about you."

Yes indeed, the rational side of her had gone missing. Rather than wait calmly for him to elaborate, her association centers began mixing past and present, conflating what had happened with what she feared might happen. Brennan knew her hypothalamus was connecting the fear to her pulse, sending out distress hormones and initiating a fight or flight response.

She could feel it beginning, the haziness and loss of contact. Sweet had told her to ground herself in some way when it began.

All the doubt of yesterday came crashing back over her in a rise of icy seawater swirling round her thighs, then it morphed into a rogue wave shoving her off her feet. She'd been knocked down by a rogue wave once before, had felt the solid thump of a watery fist at her back, had fallen and tumbled blindly in the scouring sand as the wave rolled her. She'd lost her footing, lost her orientation, lost all sense of direction, and lost her air. Everything vanished, except for the strong, warm hand that grasped her by her shoulder and hauled her upright.

It was Booth.

Keeping her eyes open and fixed on him, she felt control returning as the rushing waves faded and the chills stopped.

Booth's hand was steady on her shoulder, his gaze holding hers. "Are you all right?"

Her head trembled more than it nodded, as if it were about to tumble off completely. Yet he didn't seem to notice anything was amiss.

"Come with me, I want to show you something." Without any further explanation, Booth grabbed the baby monitor and propelled her upstairs, down the short hallway, and into Christine's room. "Look," he commanded in a whisper.

Christine was laying on her back, her tiny hands curled into fists. Little brows were smoothed out, her tiny lips pursed slightly. They had stood like this only three and a half months ago, his arm around her shoulder, watching their baby sleep.

His breath tickled against her ear. "Do you know why that is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen?"

She shook her head, too uncertain to speak.

Taking her back out into the hall, Booth led her to their bedroom. His eyes never left hers, his hand held on tight. What he said when they paused inside the door, when he closed it and locked them in, made no sense at first. "Because she's your baby."

"I don't understand," Brennan said.

"She's _your_ baby, Bones. She's part of you, she came from you. You and me. Everything I love about you is in Christine. I never wanted to have a baby with anyone but you."

Disturbed, she shook her head in rapid denial. "Parker—"

"I didn't want a baby with Rebecca, what I wanted was fun and sex. The pregnancy just happened. I love him, yes, but he was unexpected." He set the baby monitor on the dresser.

"So was Christine."

"Christine was inevitable. It was never going to be just sex with you, Bones. You appreciate the literal so here it is, the literal truth. We made love that night, two people becoming one. Our daughter exists because I love you, and you love me."

Brennan melted a little and smirked a bit more before finally pushing him in exasperation. "Christine was inevitable because we failed to act responsibly. We had unprotected sex."

"No." He was guiding her deeper into the heart of the room, stopping only when her legs bumped into the bed. "You've never been that unguarded with anyone but me. Right?"

Contemplating the truth in that accusation, she felt her foundation shift and stabilize, a certainty that came from him. As if he could hear her thoughts, see the trust she'd placed in him, Booth's charm smile lit up the room and the darkest corners of her heart.

"It was fate, Bones. I knew the moment I first saw you that I was going to love you. And you were going to love me."

_Do you believe in fate?_

Brennan felt his love lifting her cheeks, crinkling her eyes, warming her from the inside out. "That's highly improbable."

"Improbable is not impossible," he countered.

Booth's face grew tender yet the kiss that crashed over her was anything but. Fiery, hot possession, his body pressed hers down onto the bed, and her body rose up in reply.

This was Oxytocin glue, the healing power of touch and tenderness.

~Q~

Author's Note: No more rhymes, I promise. ;)

Not everything is resolved, of course, but I'd like to think they're on their way. There's one chapter left, then I have to hit the books because finals are coming.


	15. And the Center Must Hold

Disclaimer: The characters, dialogue and plotlines of Bones belong to many different people, not to me. No infringement is intended and I am not profiting from this story.

Author's Note: It has been a wonderful experience writing this story and publishing it as I go. Writing a linear story and keeping a strict schedule was a challenge, but I'm happy with the results because it forced me to keep working even through moments of writer's block-induced panic.

We have finally reached the end of this story.

~Q~

**Chapter Fifteen**

_"…And the center must hold." _

"I've been thinking."

Booth chuckled at her serious tone, because even Brennan realized the way she'd said it made it seem that thinking was a novel concept for her. "You're always thinking," he teased.

After putting Christine to bed, Brennan had come back into the living room where he was lounged and half watching a Phillies vs Nationals game. She had her hands in the large pockets of one of her bulky cardigans she'd kept from college, the same sweater she'd worn the night Booth stopped by with Chinese food to comfort her about her mother's death. The sweater had belonged to her mother, one of the few things she'd managed to hang onto over the years. Brennan's fingers gripped the soft wool tightly, needing the assurance it gave her.

"I talked to my dad earlier today." A brief pause while she gathered her thoughts. It had been an intense conversation, and at first she'd wished she had her mother to have the conversation with. Mother to daughter, like the cliché. But she didn't, and in the end, she'd realized her father could better explain certain things that her mother might not have understood. "You know, he's a lot like you. I'm … I'm like my mom was. She was the rational one."

Booth muted the game and sat up, his expression serious but open.

"I want to ask you something," Brennan continued softly.

"Okay." He waited patiently, but plainly curious.

Staring at the floor for a moment, Brennan struggled to find the best way to begin. "Did you know I'm Irish?" she finally stammered out nervously.

Quizzically, he looked up at her and wondered why this was such an uncomfortable topic. Her ancestry was obvious by both her name and her coloring. "Um, yeah, Bones. Brennan is an Irish name."

"My dad's name is actually Keenan. But my mom was Irish, too."

"I don't hold that against you," he promised, half serious, half amused. "I'm not sure why you're being so serious about being Irish, though."

"No, that's not what I wanted to ask."

Now he was truly confused. "What's going on, Bones?"

She bit her lip, squeezed her sweater more tightly around her. This was turning out to be a bit harder than she'd expected. "I said that I was willing to do irrational things to prove that I love you."

Another warm smile. "Yes, and in doing that you proved to me that you were right when Christine completely freaked out at the carousel."

Brennan smiled back, her sunlit eyes catching his. "But you were there to comfort her."

He looked away at that, at the unwelcome reminder. Brennan knew he was thinking of missing out on the first time. "Empathy is when you know what someone else is feeling. I … I know what you're feeling."

"Do you?" He sounded distant and thoroughly unconvinced.

"You're thinking that I might leave you. Again."

His gaze returned to hers, a denial springing up only to wither when he saw the same fear echoing in her.

"I'm afraid of that, too."

"That you're going to leave me again?" he asked cautiously.

Brennan suddenly stepped forward and dropped to her knees. She fumbled awkwardly, her hands groping in the sweater pockets. "I'm being irrational, Booth."

He laughed and she knew he must be thinking she'd gone far enough beyond irrational to have entered the territory known as insanity. It was a place Brennan never visited for very long, however. When she finally stilled, her hands withdrawing from the grey wool that had kept them hidden, she was holding a small black box.

"Will you marry me?"

Booth's mandible fell nearly to his knees, making Brennan think fleetingly of the need to catch it and wire it back into place. "Booth?"

He lunged out of his seat, his body propelling them both backwards as he slammed up against her and kissed her relentlessly. The box fell, her mouth and hands opened in a startled reflex as he crushed her and claimed her all in one swift move. The kiss started rough, then softened, sweetened, rendering conscious thought to mere drabbles. Whenever Booth kissed her, she lost her mind. That was an immutable fact.

When he finally pulled away, Brennan needed several long droughts of air to collect herself and remember what she had been doing a few minutes ago. Her brow finally puckered when she recalled her question and his aggressive response. "I don't know what that means," she finally realized.

In answer, he kissed her again with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes. "It means I love you," he explained. "And I know you love me. You don't have to propose to me to prove it. I know you don't like the idea of marriage, Bones. It's okay."

Steadying herself against him, Brennan explained why the idea of marriage suddenly didn't seem so foreign or frightening to her. She had considered Hodgins's point of view, and Angela's as well, but it was her father, with the most experience because he'd remained married for over twenty years, who was able to explain it best.

"My dad said that marriage is like a partnership. It's two people working together for a common goal, and sometimes they disagree about things but they have to work it out if they're going to keep working with each other. We've been partners for seven years, Booth. We've been working together and working through our disagreements for seven years. By that definition, I've already been married to you for seven years and I didn't know it."

Booth sat back a little, puzzled and marveling at what she was saying. "You said you didn't believe in making life-long promises because we can't know what we'll feel in 30 or 40 years."

"I know. I don't know how I'm going to feel or what's going to happen, but I can promise that I'll never make another unilateral decision, or leave you like that again." She looked around her until she spotted the box. Lifting it, opening it, she held it out to him. "It's a Claddagh."

"A what?" Booth gazed down at the gold ring nestled in a bed of black velvet.

"An Irish wedding ring. There's a 400 year old legend that goes with it. The hands stand for friendship, because we're friends Booth. You're my best friend. The heart stands for love, so you'll know that I love you. The crown … stands for loyalty. I promise I will never leave you again. As long as you keep this ring, it's a tangible reminder of my promise to you."

"Bones," he sighed, overwhelmed. It was a man's ring, slightly rugged despite the almost feminine heart. Looking closer, he realized she'd had it engraved with a tiny mark inside the heart. It curved a little, like a gentle wave floating in the the center.

Brennan was still talking, still trying to talk him into it. "But if you marry me, then you'll have an even greater assurance that I'll keep my promise because we'll be bound together by law."

The irony of his own reluctance was not lost on him. "You don't have to do this."

"I know, but I want to. Will you marry me?"

"You're serious about this."

She sighed impatiently. "I wouldn't ask if I wasn't serious."

Studying the ring again, he lifted it out of the box and saw that it was sized for him. He gently touched his fingertip to the etching over the heart. "What is this?"

Brennan's cheeks pinked up slightly and she dropped her eyes to the ring as well. "It's a clavicle. I drew it and asked the jeweler to engrave it on there."

"Why a clavicle," he wondered in surprise.

"Because that's when I knew." Her eyes lifted back to him, meeting him fiercely. Proudly. "When you broke your clavicle protecting me, when I saw your x-rays, I knew who you were. That's when I started trusting you. I know it's not romantic..."

He silenced her with fingers to her lips, gently pressing them shut, and for a boundless moment neither of them moved. Friendship, love, loyalty, trust. Her feelings for him, preserved in metal. His voice sounded thicker than usual when he told her, "It's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me."

Brennan pondered that statement for a few minutes. She'd been told that romantic gestures included flowers, candles, walks in the snow or on the beach. Booth had assured her once that bones were never romantic. The ring was romantic, but she hadn't been sure he would appreciate her putting a bone on it. Yet, it had felt right, exactly right, to make the ring his by making it more than metal.

Leaving her brave face at last, Booth gazed again at the ring, his astonishment slowly melting into a smile that could melt whole glaciers. "When did you have this done?"

Not quite explaining the exact time, Brennan settled for touching his chest instead. "When I realized all I ever had to do, is trust you."

"You started trusting me after you saw my x-rays?" Still amazed, he thought back to that night in the hospital and the next morning, and the way that she had asked him about the things she'd seen in his x-rays. She had stayed with him far longer than he would have expected. In just one night, she had changed. Something huge had shifted between them that day, he'd always sensed it. Now he knew why.

"You read my bones," he exclaimed. Comprehension widened his eyes as he realized that was exactly what had happened. He'd been hurt, she'd stayed, and the glimpse into his body, at his bones, told her who he really was. Everything happens for a reason, he had always believed it. "You know what that means, Bones? It means I was right. We can't argue with fate."

"Fate?"

"Do you believe in fate now? I told you when we met that we were going somewhere. And I was right. It took us eight more years to get here, but here we are."

Her pulse ticked upwards, increasing just from the low, rumbling pitch of his voice and the trace of his fingers that had found their way to her cheek. She shivered, amazed as always that he could make her respond so effortlessly.

His grin widened, his eyes darkening with sensual promise as his touch glided down the front of her throat, tracing the line of her sternalcleidomastoid, to hover over her clavicle, to trace it as carefully as she often traced over his. She swallowed, her skin moving slightly under his fingertips. "I told you that you would propose, and I was right about that, too."

"There's no such thing as fate," she insisted, but with a gleam that let him know how much she loved his faith in it.

He pulled her forward, his lips falling everywhere as he whispered to her. "This is fate. You and me."

"You still haven't answered me," she pouted. "I've asked you twice."

"No," he breathed against her lips.

Brennan frowned. "No, I haven't asked you twice…?"

"No, Bones, I won't marry you." Then he kissed her again, leveling her with a heated kiss intended to boil her blood and fry her brains.

Despite the enormous distraction of Booth's touch, a question tumbling through her mind kept nagging at the edges of her consciousness. Pulling away, bewildered by the mixed message of no coupled with searing kisses, Brennan shook her head to clear it. "Why not?"

He was still smiling at her, the love still shining clearly from his melted chocolate gaze. "I don't need you to get married to prove you love me. It's enough that you asked."

"But what if I want to?"

He studied her carefully, that gentle smile still lingering. "Then ask me again in a year. Do you trust me?"

She nodded, felt her own doubt receding. He was usually right about these things. "I trust you."

Locking eyes with his partner, Seeley Booth deliberately pushed the ring over the fourth phalanx of his left hand, with the heart pointed away from him.

Her eyes widened. "No, Booth that means ..."

"I know what it means, Bones." *

~Q~

**_~The End~_**

~Q~

Author's Note: After all that angst, I couldn't do anything less than a very fluffy ending. I know not everyone thinks Brennan would (or should) propose, but I took one line from season five as my justification. Brennan told her cousin she'd never found a good reason to get married. I've always thought that Booth kind of needed to understand he shouldn't pressure Brennan into getting married (and he came through). But I also think Brennan needs to realize that it would be reassuring to Booth if she did propose, showing she was willing to make that kind of commitment. For Brennan, this might be the good enough reason that would make her reconsider the idea.

Thank you to everyone reading this note because if you're here, you've gone all the way through to the end. Your time is valuable and I appreciate you spending it with my story. Thank you to everyone who has left me reviews and PMs. Your words of support and encouragement made this sometimes rough journey worth every second.

And last, a very special thank you to DorothyOz, who really helped me focus on the issues that needed to be worked out through this story. I couldn't have done it without you. :D

* For those who don't know the rules for wearing a Claddagh, here they are. On the right hand, heart pointing out means you're free to date. Heart pointing in means you're seeing someone. On the left hand, heart pointed out means you're engaged. Heart pointing in means you're married. Booth put the ring on his left hand, heart pointing out. In other words, he's signifying that he's engaged. If Brennan asks him again, he'll say yes. But even if she doesn't, he's showing the world that he's taken.


End file.
